


collection of ficlets/poems/drabbles

by bookstvnerdlove, swallowedsong (bookstvnerdlove)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 15:58:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 76
Words: 42,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1654259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookstvnerdlove/pseuds/bookstvnerdlove, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookstvnerdlove/pseuds/swallowedsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Intimacy and relationships don't come easily to either of them, but they're learning as they go. The stories are not all connected, but they all share the same theme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Falling

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of poetry and drabbles from my tumblr account. These follow the second half of season 3 through the hiatus. I will begin a new collection when season 4 begins.

He can feel her hand slipping out of his grasp, into the bright orange. And he knows that it's magic and not flames but he can't help the fear that somehow she will catch fire and be consumed and he will never see her again.

(He's trying to forget all of her hurtful words, though it proves difficult when she's telling him to just let go and to save himself. That's when he makes the decision that this is it. He will follow her and they will reverse the spell and if she is still running away from him he will let her go.)

Just as he comes to his decision her hand slides fully from him and she's falling. But he pushes himself off the floor of the barn and then he is falling too, until everything turns black.

When she wakes up, body crumpled on the ground, surrounded by trees she finds that he is there. Body lying prone next to hers, groaning in pain, but not fully awake. She leans over to shake him (Killian, Killian!) when she notices that her ribs are so tight and her legs are heavy with fabric. (Oh crap, oh crap, it's a dress and the forest, and she's back. But this time it's different.)

She looks over at him, wondering why he is there. She knows the pirate can read it all over her face because he just quirks his brow and says, "I was not going to let you face this alone."

(And something clicks inside her that started when he was drowning and she realizes what a fool she's been. And she swears that she'll tell him. But first they have to save everybody. Again.)


	2. Free

Softness. That is his first thought as her lips seek his, focused solely on the sensation of finally, finally, kissing her again. Her lips are so soft.

(He's not ready to think about the events that led to this. The bust of magic that instantly lifted the pressure around his rotten heart. He's comfortable with the idea of love, having spent hundreds of years to avenge its demise. But True Love? That is for princes like David. Not for him.)

Her hands thread through his hair, grasping, tightening. And suddenly everything changes. Her lips start pulling, biting, a sense of urgency building inside him. He pushes her up against the door, hips pinning her into place.

(He knows that she should be with her family, now that the witch is defeated, but he can't help but be selfish. There was a part of him that reveled in his punishment, knowing that he did not deserve her.)

But right now, in the moment, he can't bring himself care. Not when her hands slide down his neck to the collar of his coat until she's pushing it back, and it falls down his arms, to the floor. Not when he can bury his face into her neck, growling, nipping at her skin, hips still driving into her as her leg slides up his, wrapping around him.

Her lips part and she moans softly as his hand sneaks under her shirt, his knuckles grazing her softly before reaching around to unclasp her bra.

(He'll want to see her in that later, noting the delicate lace and silky fabric. But for now, he needs to feel her bare skin against his, limbs entwined. She is his benediction.)


	3. Pressure

She's never been with a man who wore jewelry before. Even though he's traded in his leather pants for tight black jeans and his ornate vest for something in a more breathable fabric, he still wears his earring, necklace, and those rings. ("What did you think, darling? Just because we shared a true love kiss that I would start dressing like your father?") He reminds her on a weekly basis. Though she likes to think that it's really because he is in awe of them.

What does true love even mean? She always wonders, as his hand brushes against hers in the hallway of the loft, or under the table at Granny's. sometimes (late at night at the docks) he will grab her hand fully, fingers entwined, until the cool metal of his rings seem to burn into her skin with the warmth of their shared bodies.

One day he forgets to put them on as they rush out of the loft, running late to pick up Henry ("Come on, love. We can be quick about it.") Every time his hand touches her that day, she feels their absence. She misses the pressure they placed on her fingers, digging into her skin, into her heart. As if feeling him simply beside her was not enough.

Later that night she asks what they mean to him. And he spends hours telling her tales of his early days at sea. ("You probably wouldn't have liked me much, love." She just shrugs, "But I like you now.")


	4. Scream

her back against the wall,

his hand sliding up her chest,

stopping at her collarbone as he leans in and brushes his lips against hers.

his voice soft and seductive,

 _i'm going to make you scream, darling_.

his hand moving up her neck landing tangled in her hair,

pulling roughly, exposing her neck,

lips traveling to her favorite spot below her ear.

finding herself spun around until she's facing the wall,

hand sliding up the wall to steady,

his body aligned along her back,

crowding her,

making her desperate.

his fingers slipping,

lower and lower,

finding her.

pleasing her.

moving faster and faster, until —

she moans his name,

long and languid.

he places a soft kiss at the base of her neck,

and whispers,  _love._


	5. Excite

Cold metal sliding along skin,

Tearing through lace and silk.

Shouldn't excite her,

She shouldn't wish for it to defile her,

So thoroughly.


	6. Silk

He's felt it since their first kiss in Neverland. (Or is it really their second? How does one count time travel?) that ghost of a sensation, silky threads of hair slipping through his fingers.

So this time, as he tastes her lips again, he can't stop touching her hair. The first (second) time they kissed, he deflected her true expression of gratitude, and turned it into the only type of connection he could understand.

This time, when he tells her about the Jolly, he has no idea how she will react. All he knows is that he's tired of hiding that truth. And seeing the look in her eyes, the thanks practically making her glow, suddenly makes the loss of his ship, of his home, disappear.

And this time, she moves in slowly, instead of the crashing bravado, and he feels that silky sensation before his hand even reaches her hair.


	7. Games

"So, you want to play pirate?" He growls as his hook slides down her bare arm. Not hard enough to leave a mark, but with just enough pressure that she knows who he is.

"Hmmm," she moans softly as his hand slides down her front, slipping into her pants, unbuttoned.

"I asked you a question, love," his voice hard, commanding. His hand hovers over the satin and lace, not pressing, just there waiting, maddeningly, teasing her.

She knows what he is doing. She's supposed to describe to him, in detail, all of the dirty, naughty things that she wants him to do to her. He'll wait patiently while she begs for his touch. But until she gives in he will remain still, reveling in her desperation.

Usually she likes this game. But she decided today that he's become far too sure of himself, and of her. She wants to throw him for a loop. She wants to see his eyes darken when he realizes just how far at her mercy he is. She wants him as desperate, as greedy as he wants her.

She raises her hips just enough that his fingers graze her, briefly sating the need that has built inside.

He slides his hand out of her pants and pushes her hips back down, "Ah, ah, ah, my dear. You know the rules."

"Maybe we need a new set of rules today," as she leverages her leg around his hips and flips them over, fluidly.

He grunts in surprise, but doesn't fight her so she rewards him with a soft lingering kiss.

She unlatches the hook from its home and she traces it along his abdomen before sliding the tip under his leathers, gently tugging.

"I'm going to be the captain this time."


	8. Friction

That delicious friction from his hips grinding into hers and feeling of her back sinking into the couch cushions.

His lips grazing her neck as he moans her name. ( _Emma, Emma, love._ )

Back in the system it was always janitors closets at school and cars parked somewhere dark.

It's a new sensation, the feeling of home, of  _belonging_ , along with the speeding of her heart and the tightness in her belly.

Comfort and sex should not fit so well. (It never has before in her experience). But with him, she wants everything.

She doesn't know how to say the words (yet). But she thinks he understands as she threads her fingers through his hair, pulling, guiding, until she can reach up and crush her lips to his.


	9. Touch

It's the small things, like the gentle slope of her neck as it curves into her shoulders.

He likes that he's allowed (now) to gently trace his finger along her skin. It's just a simple touch, but he's never been much for that before.

It used to tantalize him (then) the idea that one day he might get close enough to just breathe her in.

Sometime it amazes him how quickly a simple touch between them  _ignites_  into something more.

But they were both so starved for this, the simple concept of  _connection_ , that is (sometimes) so daunting to give in to. It shouldn't surprise him, how  _needy_  they become in the face of it.

His favorite part is the way she tries to suppress her moans, so self contained as if she's afraid that once she lets go, everything will be gone forever.

And that moment when she realizes that he's still there with her, eyes open and dark with such greed for him.

That's the moment where she feels safe enough to let go. And to fly.


	10. Ache

He never expected the skin along her inner thighs to feel like satin, so smooth and alluring. His favorite thing about her is her strength, the raw power apparent in her arms and legs, all sinew and bone and muscle. He's used to the women from his realm with their curves on display and their skin rough from homespun soap. But in this realm, he thinks of the small bottles that line her bathroom sink and the hours he has spent watching her slide their contents along her bare skin. He can spend hours worshiping her skin, watching her body writhe and flush.

(He remembers the way Milah transformed from soft curves to strong muscle. How she could hoist a sail with the best of his men, how she used her legs to fight along his side. He sees the same power in Emma. He loves the way the painful ache of memory eases with every moment he is with her.)

Her favorite thing is the way that he licks his lips constantly throughout the day, unconsciously, making her think of sex at the most inappropriate times. She thinks about the way his lips nip at the sensitive skin on her neck and how he exerts just enough pressure with his teeth to send shivers across her body. Sometimes he spends what feels like hours on her legs, tongue and lips and teeth and always hovering closest to where she wants him, making her want to beg and plead to end her torment.

(She will never tell him, but she loves the way he teases her with his mouth. When they are completely bare for each other, vulnerability exposed, in ways that she never let somebody see her before. The way that his hand and his hook slide along her legs, the mixture of cold and hot making her bloom with need, the pressure of them as she sinks deep into the surface until she comes apart.)


	11. Words

There are a thousand things she wants to say to Killian Jones. Most of the time she thinks of them when he's asleep and she watching him breathe. (chest rising up, falling down. up, down.) She never used to be shy with words before, when she had nothing but loneliness to lose - fighting words, angry words, seductive words, false words.

Sometimes she whispers them into his ear, when he's rolled over on his side. She slides her body along his back, listening to the way his body seems to just _sigh_  at her presence before her hand reaches around his body, gliding along his abdomen, loving how soft those patches of hair feel. (She doesn't know why she thought it would feel rough against her hands.) She likes to lean close to his ear and tell him the things that she knows he longs to hear - playful words, happy words, true words.

(She never used to believe in the power of words before. She remembers promises that were never fulfilled - nonsense words, empty words, useless words.)

She prefers to tell him how she feels with everything she does. She tells him that she loves him when she rents an apartment near the water so that he can be close to the sea. She tells him that she needs his love when she shows him her childhood scars. She tells him that he is her family when she sends him and Henry into the woods for a camping trip with David and Robin and Roland. She tells him she appreciates his steadfast heart when she welcomes them back the next day and washes the dirt out of his clothes - unspoken words

(Years later, after three curses and one more trip back to the Enchanted Forest, she's finally convinced that he doesn't regret giving up his  _home_  for her, that she won't lose him to some quest to find his ship. So she tells him, "I love you," on a quiet night at the apartment. Henry's upstairs doing homework and they're lying on the couch, facing each other, legs tangled together while they ignore the moving playing in the background.)


	12. Inspired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by romantic comedies, Killian tries to surprise Emma, but it never works out as expected. (FLUFFY FLUFF IS FLUFFY!)

Sometimes, late at night when he finds it hard to sleep without feeling the steady rocking of the sea, Killian finds his way to the room that Swan calls the ‘living room’. (A strange name, he finds, as if the other rooms in the apartment are not  _lived_  in. But he stopped questioning the different rules and names and patterns of speech found in this realm long ago.) 

After a few nights, he manages to figure out how the television works and quickly becomes addicted to watching the moving pictures that play, seemingly constantly, between the twilight and dawn hours. (He particularly likes the ones with romantic stories, as they make him think of  _her_ , and their current navigation of  _together._ An old part of him, the young and idealistic naval lieutenant who clung to rules and regulations with a death grip, is somewhat scandalized by the amount of bare skin some of the pictures expose. Of course, another side of him finds them fascinating, cataloging images and replacing all of the women with Emma.)

Since discovering these  _movies_ , Killian determines that he must surprise Swan with gifts, which soon proves to be an impossible task. His first attempt to buy her flowers goes awry when the florist, a Mr. French (related to the Dark One’s wife, he discovers later), refuses to haggle over prices and only accepts gold coin as payment after a series of threats and his stubborn refusal to leave the shop without the  _specific_  flowers desired.

When he returns to the apartment that evening, buttercups in hand, he finds Emma waiting for him at the kitchen table with several sheets of paper in front of her. “I’ve already spoken to the bank,” businesslike briskness in her tone, “We should be able to get to you set up tomorrow.” He just sighs and hands over her flowers while she smiles broadly, “It’s a small town Killian; people like to bother the Sheriff.”

(The next day, they go down to the bank, walking hand in hand down the street, and add his name to her account. Of course, he insists on giving her all of his coin, which she ends up storing in a chest at the foot of her bed. He calls her a pirate, hoarding her treasure, which earns him much more than a kiss later that night.)

The next time he tries to surprise with a change of attire (as she keeps going on about how he’s the only person left in Storybrooke who still looks like he dropped straight out of a Disney theme park, whatever  _that_  is). Henry drags him to a clothing shop along the main street in town and begins to pile shirts and pants and jackets on his arm, ushering him into a  _fitting room_. Sheriff Swan shows up at the shop not ten minutes later. When he tries to make eye contact with the shop girl, the lass blushes and her eyes skitter to and fro, avoiding the space surrounding him. Swan just shrugs and replies to his unasked question, “She was worried about possible damage to the clothes,” and gestures at his hook.

(He ends up with new clothes anyway, as Swan calls David to take over her shift and helps him navigate the variety of garments available, sneaking kisses while Henry has his back turned. Just a quick press of her lips to his when she approves of a clothing choice, and an adorable scrunch of her nose when she does not.)

The one time he almost succeeds is when he enlists her lad to help him cook dinner after a particularly busy week at the station. (There is some sort of curse brewing he thinks, as the air maintains the same bitter chill when the sun is shining, as when it is not.) If not for a faulty wire in the stove that engulfed the entire kitchen in flame for a brief, frighting, moment, he would have been able to see Swan’s eyes alight as she walked in the door to what Henry assured him was her favorite meal. 

(Instead, she walks into the apartment with takeout from Granny’s and, after dealing with the fire department, the three of them head over to David and Mary Margaret’s to share the food and warmth. Despite his inability to bestow a surprise upon her, Killian finds that he doesn’t mind the way things turn out, as he surveys the loft and the people in this family that has somehow become  _his._ And while they do not fill the Liam- and Milah-shaped holes in his heart, they fill new spaces where he previously thought there was no room.)


	13. your heart, my heart

He gives her his heart to protect anew, every morning when she wakes up. With his smiles, sometimes full and sometimes smirking, it passes from his lips to hers as they press together, sometimes lingering, sometimes so briefly that it leaves her  _wanting_. 

(It's so easy for him, she thinks, to trust that she'll know what to do with it.)

He wakes up in her bed more mornings than not, sun shining in through the slats of her window shades. On the mornings the he doesn't, he knocks on her door, the smell of coffee or cocoa wafting from Granny's take-out cups. 

(How he always seems to know which one she wants, she wonders, in awe of the way he reads her so  _precisely_.)

He hasn't yet asked for her heart in return, though she sometimes wants him to. She's slow, she knows, to give herself to others. She tries and fails, some days, to have the same amount of faith as him. She can feel herself, at times, falling back into old patterns. The anger and frustration and loneliness clawing their way out of her mind and into her heart. She fears giving her heart to him those days in fear that she will break his skin and he will bleed and bleed beyond repair. 

(He says to her, on occasion, if your parents can share one heart, then we can share my faith.)

The way he gives and expects nothing in return is what, eventually, allows her to share her heart with him, piece by piece, inching closer to its entirety every day. 

(She needs to know, before she says  _I love you,_ that she understands exactly what love is.)


	14. dreams

Sometimes he dreams of Milah, though the dreams are not like they were _before_.  
  
(The number of times he awoke in a cold sweat, his mind replaying her death over and again on a hazy and drunken loop, are uncountable. Sometimes it would happen in his dreams exactly as it happened in life, crocodile holding her heart while all he got was her cold body. Other times it would be ever so slightly different, in a duel with the demon, or some other torture, always his fault, the end result always the same.)  
  
The night he spent tied up in New York, sated with revenge, he didn't dream at all. After that, slowly, other dreams emerged. Now he dreams of happier things, fanciful twists of memory and imagination.  
  
(He dreams of nights spent curled into each other in his bed or dueling on deck for show in front of his men. He dreams of how she could sit for hours, in one spot, sketching his face or Baelfire's from memory. He would always get restless after a while, life aboard ships from an early age curing him of idleness, but not Milah. He dreams about how her eyes would darken with want, how she taught him the best ways to please her, and of how she would join him in their bed wearing the most decadent sleeping gowns he could find, reveling in luxury.)  
  
 _Gods_ , did they really do some of these things?  
  
(Three hundred years is a long time to hold a memory pristine.)  
  
Other times he dreams of Liam and those are always the same, a chronological progression, ending in tragedy.  
  
(Liam finding him, he weak as an alley cat but with the same claws and snarls. Liam keeping him, pleading for the crown to allow him early passage into the naval academy. Liam teaching him what honor meant, the rules of good form and in dealings with others. Liam teaching him what honor does not mean, a corrupt monarch who chooses to destroy with magical obliteration.  
  
He never dreams about his early days as a pirate, memories that keep quiet at night to haunt him at day.  
  
(He remembers enough of the mixture of fierce anger and shame and early failures every time he faces a new danger to the town at Emma’s side. He despairs at the idea of failing her.)  
  
He rarely dreams of Emma, unless it is about fears of losing her to some evil force that always seems to be lurking about. Instead, he wakes her up with long, languid kisses, smirking at her exclaims of horror at her morning breath (what does a pirate care of that?) and sliding his hand along her smooth skin.  
  
(After convincing him of a need for new attire, Emma likes to sleep in his shirts. Picking them up after they've exhausted themselves, clothing discarded across her apartment, buttoning them over her bare skin, long legs exposed. She purchases him shirt after shirt then steals them away. When he asks her why she doesn't just buy some for herself she laughs, a light twinkling sound in the candlelight, and tells him it's only fun after he's worn the shirt. The next day he finds all of them back in his drawer freshly laundered until the cycle begins again.)  
  
He shares his dreams with Emma some mornings, except when he dreams of the future. Those dreams are too precious to him to express.  
  
(That he has a future to even dream of at all is enough.)


	15. Fight

She’s never been with somebody long enough to have this kind of fight before. The kind that starts about one thing and then spirals, twisting and twirling, into some far off land of dangerous words and hidden fears.

(She doesn’t even remember how it started. She knows it was probably her fault. Snappish, non-trusting, cautious girl that she can be. But he _knows_  this about her so why isn’t he prepared when that particular version of her appears?)

They don’t yell, which surprises her, given the passion with which Killian throws himself into every activity he undertakes and relationship he forges.

(The fierce bond that has grown between Henry and Killian never fails to delight her, even on the worst of days.)

Instead his tone is all polite injury, hers of spluttering frustration, as he asks her just what their relationship  _means_  to her.

(And she’s mystified that he even has to ask. Sure she hasn’t yet said _I love you_ , like he does almost every day with the the look in his eyes as he calls her darling, or the small brushes of his hands against hers at every possible moment. But she says it in her own ways that she swore he could read.)

All she wants to do is yell at him to just read her mind, which is completely irrational, she knows. But for all his claims of  _open book, love_ , the man has clearly missed the point. 

(She forgets, sometimes, that he’s lived most of his long life slowly losing people, his companions dwindling down to zero, the deeper his quest for revenge took him. She forgets that he has loved and lost in a way foreign to her. For all that Graham died in her arms, he was a brief wisp of hope where Milah was the world - and the sun and the moon - to Killian.)

All she can think is that this is it. That he is finally tired of  _trying_  so hard and that he will go. And he can’t go, he can’t go, she repeats it so many times in her head until the words burst out of her with a small,  _please._

( _You are the stars_ , he whispers later that night in bed,  _vast and bright and infinite._ _  
_

She rolls over in bed to clasp his face between her palms and she reassures to him, in between the press of lips,  _you are mine,_ and  _I want you always._ )


	16. Everything is Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for tumblr's cs bangarang. This week's theme was Killian’s favorite position. Or, inevitably, his lack of one. Because let’s be real. He loves them all. (almost. definitely. probably.)

Some days Killian thinks his favorite position is face to face, Emma on her back, body lithe, long lower limbs wrapped around his waist. He likes that he can brush her face with his hand, fingers tracing her flushed cheekbones, sometimes grasping her hair. (It falls around her head, glorious and golden. He is addicted to how silky it feels to touch and how it it looks against the midnight blue sheets in their bed.) He loves to watch her eyes, overtaken with pleasure, as she comes, her eyelashes fluttering as he leans in for a kiss. Lips clinging as he takes his own release, hips thrusting as he rides out her afterglow.

(He’s never slept in a bed this big before, sprawling expanse of mattress and fabric. He always ends up on her side of the bed, close enough for her scent to invade his brain upon waking, curled around her back. She always grumbles that she is not a cuddler, but she usually falls back into his warmth anyway.)

(Some mornings, his favorite position is this, his hand snaking around to her front, sliding down her sleeping trousers, finding her so warm, wet, and ready for him, her voice not yet awake so she gasps in broken breaths as he slides in so gently. Just rocking slowly until their hearts race in sync.)

On the nights that Emma is drunk and bold he likes to match her rushed and rough race. His favorite on these nights is to whirl her about this way and that. Fully naked with her back up against the wall, breast bouncing, flushed and shiny with sweat, with his every thrust. Or Emma, kneeling on the couch, hands gripping the arm, his hook digging into her shoulder - just enough - and his hips rotating as he reaches the spot that makes her moan his name. Those nights where it’s never enough and they both want more more more until they pass out, spent, on whatever surface they land upon.

(He’s come to find that it does not matter how he has her, only that he does.)

(But that doesn’t stop him from swiping copies of every erotic tome this realm has to offer - pirated away from the librarian with a wink - just in case.)


	17. It's Never Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Companion to previous chapter 'Everything is Everything'. Again, a little smuttier than my usual for those who aren't as interested.

She was worried, when they took those tentative first steps towards togetherness, that she would not know _how_ to do it. How to be with the same man, day in and day out. She always used to crave a simple release. (Different men. One night, one orgasm. Goodbye and thank you. )

Emma soon learns the beauty in belonging. The beauty of time, time to explore all the contours of a lover, his body, worn and weathered and all hers. The time to savor every inch of smooth skin and scarred skin, to discover the way he tastes, so salty and _familiar_.

(She also discovers the shape of his lips, from the way that they cling to hers and the way they feel as they travel down her body. The tingle she feels in her toes when his lips trace along her skin. The growing ache deep within as they wrap around her nipples, pulling and tugging. Her favorite is the way they feel shaping words against her skin, _come for me,_ and _that’s it, love,_ and her favorite, _let go, darling_. Whispers against her body as his tongue and his teeth make her restless.)

(She learns that even after the newness fades, she feels something different every time. Whether they begin in comfort or seduction, whether she needs lightness and love or intensity and lust, each time she feels their mood in the way their bodies move together.)

She now craves the way her entire body shivers as he groans her name in that long low tone, so smooth and deep. He says it when she slides down, taking him slowly. Her body hovering over his, teasing with shallow movements until all he can do is say her name, _Emma Emma Emma_ , before she gives in to what they both want. He says it when she drops to her knees, her lips wrapped around him, as his fingers thread through her hair, his rings catching and pulling with his grasp. He says as they fall asleep, face to face in their bed, in between light touches of lips that sometimes linger, legs brushing together and toes curling.

(She never used to like the sound of her name on a lover's lips. It felt false and empty, the sound grating at her. Always too intimate, _too much_ , for what they were.)

(With him, it's never enough.)


	18. we are marked, but we survive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because I love thinking about what it means for the two of them to just be together, learning more about each other, and because I want certain things like more about Blackbeard and the Jolly Roger. Finally, because Killian hides his marks so well, we can sometimes forget they are even there at all.

He learns about the small scar on her hand with a clenched jaw. Her eyes are sad as she relays the tale, even though she tells him with her words i _t’s okay now_  and  _really, I’m fine_  and  _it was a long time ago_. 

This concept of being  _fine_  is an idiom blank with meaning for him. He has long since learned about acceptance of the past. He lives with one hand and one hook with relative ease and does not much miss his other hand because what’s the point in missing some appendage. He certainly knows the feeling of anger and vengeance, the burning deep within to address wrongs and fight. All he had for so long with fight – raging against the monarchy and against the crocodile.

He even knows what it means to live long enough to forgive. He can still recall exactly how  _empty_  he was, tied up in a chair, taunting his captors, prattling on about  _revenge_ and  _satiation_. Lying throughout, completely devoid of feeling, until he let the Crocodile aboard his ship and he realized exactly what it was – forgiveness for  _himself_.

(Even though concepts like time and distance are relative with him, they’ve nothing to do with acceptance or forgiveness or anger. They’ve certainly nothing to do with  _fine._ )

.   .   .

He learns that when she says she’s  _fine_  it’s because she doesn’t know how to assign blame upon anybody except herself.

.   .   .

He learns how to release her burdens with the brush of his hand against hers, fingers twining together. His lips upon her brow, her eyelids, her lips, the curve of her body where he neck slopes into her shoulders. His lips anywhere, until her entire body sighs.

.   .   .

She’s reminded that she’s in love with a pirate on the day that Blackbeard comes to town. The (other) legendary pirate sails into town, The Jolly Roger bursting through the harbor with a splash. She watches as he laughs it off, exclaiming to David that he’s lucky he arrived not a moment earlier as the harbor had been covered with a sheet of ice, thick with magic.

Later that night, she threads her fingers through his hair as they stand together outside of Granny’s, her family inside waiting for them.

“Are you okay?” she asks, concerned at his silence, the weight of an entire damn pirate ship between them.

He takes holder of her wrist, thumb stroking her skin as he replies, “I’ve no regrets, love, if that’s what you’re asking. Though she sure is a beautiful thing to behold.”

Heat unfurls within her at the thought that she is worth so much to him, but she’s reminded of a conversation they had not long after their return from the past, of Killian pacing in her empty apartment. Of his words, his worry that if he is to live there with her, she has to  _know_. 

So, she speaks the truth, “But Blackbeard should be dead.”

.   .   .

She’s reminded of his patience when the other pirate finally approaches them, looking every inch like the Captain Hook of cartoon fame. Minus the hook, of course. Red coat, twirling mustache, cascades of curls that some women might envy. But his face – it’s a face hard and lined and full of cracks and craters.

“Well, my boy, it looks like you really have gone soft. I’ve your precious ship as proof.”

His voice reminds Emma of something deep and dark. It’s full of anger, of disdain, and maybe a hint of fear.

“You should be swimming the depths of Davy Jones’ Locker by now, mate,” Killian says calmly, ignoring the taunt, which only serves to enrage Blackbeard more.

“Your mermaid friend was kind enough to save me,” he bites out.

“Ahh, so that’s how she found her Prince. You gave in so easily, in the end, it seems.”

“Even I, feared pirate, has learned not to tangle with a mermaid, boy. You’d best watch your back with that one.”

With those parting words, the pirate quickly takes his leave, the ship disappearing as quickly as it came.

.   .   .

She asks him if he’s worried, later on that evening. He tells her there’s no use worrying over such a matter. They’ll take everything as it comes at them, as they always do. Standing together.

.   .   .

She still watches him anyway. She watches as he slides his hand along the spyglass, always close by, always ready to keep watch for the next danger. 


	19. feels like home

She’s always felt at home near the water. She likes the way the ocean is so vast that you can stare out across the deep blue. She likes it when the water is calm on the horizon, the way that it makes her feel, like the world is infinite and all she has to do is jump in.

(She used to imagine that somewhere, out there, her parents were looking at the same sea, searching for her.)

(She stopped doing that after a while.)

Her favorite place in Storybrooke is the driftwood bench, out where Henry’s castle used to be. It was the first place where she and Henry bonded, the first place where she began to feel that pull of home.

(When it was destroyed, she worried that it was a sign, that she wasn’t wanted, wasn’t supposed to be there, that Henry wasn’t meant to be part of her.)

(She calls herself a superstitious fool. But then, after she finally believes, she sometimes visits and just wonders.)

The first time she takes Killian there, Henry teases her and calls it their fiery date. She supposes that it is, though dates should probably not involve sad tales and shots of rum from a shared flask. It’s easy to share things with him there, in that spot, watching the water. Sometimes calm, sometimes the tide ripping through the water, forming rows and rows of white on blue.

(She packs a small basket of food, one day, and grabs his hand. Urging him to come with her, she threads her fingers with his, dragging him to their spot. He follows her lead, as always.)

(It’s where she tells him that she loves him, lying limbs entwined on a blanket, clothes in disarray, minds content.)


	20. distracted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, filming has started once again (haha) and I am not a spoiler-free gal. So if you don't want even hints of speculation based on totally random set photos, do not read ahead. I repeat - this is all based on random set photos so it's not full-on spoiler, but it is based on filming stuff so proceed with caution if you care about that. :)

She can still feel a ghost of sensation, her lips tingling with remembered desire, as her mother speaks to her -- of Henry, of Regina, of the aftereffects of so much  _drama._ She feels more crisis brewing. It's in the air, she feels, a wisp of chill that sends prickles across the back of her neck. She tries to concentrate on the moment, but her brain is scattered and she knows  _exactly_ why. 

All she can think of is the light in his eyes as she leaned in, their lips touching, at first so sweetly until his hand slid into her hair and her breath caught, heart racing, and their mouths fused together. His eyes lit from within -- with lust and that little something  _more_ , the thing she knows but dares not name. 

She wants him,  _so much._ His presence in her life and his steady, unwavering support. The comfort of his arms wrapped so tightly around her as their breath mingles and her nerves are set ablaze. But will  _he_  be the one to run away this time, if she can't find the words to  _say_  it?

When she feels his hand, gently wrapping around her arm, that same pull that she always senses around him emerges -- the magnetic need to just  _be_  in his space. Her mother gives her  _the_  glance, that one special look that she's seen when he is around, the one that says  _be careful._ Emma smiles at her and tells her she'll catch up in a moment. 

As she turns to face him, their eyes catching and holding, she finds that she can read them so  _clearly_. The buzzing in her mind fades, forgetting the chill, forgetting her other worries, until the only thing she thinks about -- the only thing the feels -- is the warmth of his body, standing close to her, smiling and flicking her hair with his hook. She focuses on the grin at his lips as he leans in closely. 

She whispers against his lips, as they brush lightly, back and forth, "If you're sticking around Storybrooke, we might want to think about getting you some new clothes."

He pulls back and asks with another grin, wider than moments before, and an arch of his brow, "So I'm staying then?"

Instead of replying, she slides her arms around his waist and closes the distance between their bodies until they are so closely aligned that she can feel both their hearts at her chest.

"Aye," she says softly, leaning and leaning until their lips meet again. 

 


	21. the shape of things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s said I love you before. She knows it’s shape on her lips, it’s taste in her mouth, it’s sound in her voice.

She cannot pinpoint the moment in time when he had become so  _essential_  to her, only that he is. She now knows it the same as she knows she must breathe air to survive, instinctual and just  _there._ )

She knows the moment she realized it was there, assuming he would join her in Granny’s, at her side during the coronation announcement, during her own announcements. But that must not be when it began, because to miss the sensation she had to feel it first.

(When he wasn’t there she felt empty, throat constricted and heart pounding.)

She doesn’t have the same frame of reference, of a world full of magic and True Loves Kiss. And she’s never had certainty of any kind before.

She knows that she sometimes tests and pushes, that she tried to make him leave, so she wouldn’t want so much, hope for so much, feel so much.

(Is there enough apology adequate to make up for that?)

He’s not so different with her now, still subtly pressing and engaging and supporting. Maybe his smile is a little wider, his teasing sharper — with wit and other edges. Edges that make her want to take his hand and drag him home in the middle of a council meeting and damn any consequences. Edges that pull her to him in the middle of the night, pressing against him as if his warmth could invade her insides.

There are still conversations to be had, but there are also moments, hidden from the rest, pressing up against stairwells until she breathlessly knocks on her parents door to visit with her brother.

There are wounds tended from battle with giant snow creatures and there are confrontations of magic and power, of fear, and finally of hope.

There are quiet moments, his hand in hers, fingers always moving, always brushing her skin, as if reassuring himself that she is real and there and will not disappear.

(She’s said I love you before. She knows it’s shape on her lips, it’s taste in her mouth, it’s sound in her voice.)

(But what are words against the sound of his heart racing as their lips meet, as she traces his scars, as she strips bare in front of him, asking him to take her as she is.)


	22. restless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a little smutty foreplay. if you're not into it, you've been warned.

She's lying in bed, restless and edgy. Her legs slide up and down, knees bending, sheets twisting beneath her toes. Her back arches off the mattress at the touch of his hand, so light that she can barely feel it on her face, but her entire body is so  _aware._ Her skin, insanely sensitive to his touch, shivers extending through her arms, along her torso, down her legs. 

"You've been thinking too hard," he said earlier that night, "I know this situation with Regina is unpleasant."

She'd huffed out a laugh because  _unpleasant_  seemed an understatement.

"But," he'd continued as he dangled a silk scarf in front of her, "You have to give yourself permission to feel good, too."

And that is how she ended up here, blindfolded and completely nude, left aching and shivering at his touch, his hand and his lips wandering across her body, with her completely unaware as to where he'll go next.

He'd started simply enough, leaning in with a grin as he brushed his lips against her briefly, giving a quick nip of the teeth, tugging her bottom lip and releasing it quickly, her instinct to follow his lips with hers but he pulls away too quickly, leaving her wanting more.

He wraps the silk around her eyes and tells her to stop thinking and just  _feel_. (She feels so much, she thinks – responsibility, guilt, fear, anger – that she’s forgotten that she is allowed to feel the simply joy of  _being_  with him. And isn't it just like him, she thinks, to know just what she needs before she can even voice it.)

Soon, he’s pulled off her clothes, piece by piece, excruciatingly slowly. First her shirt, his hand tugging the material over her head. Then, his lips tracing along the sensitive skin at her neck, face buried in the curve where her shoulder begins, while his hand reaches around her back, fingers trailing slowly across her skin, the cool of his rings against her, equally shocking and soothing. He unclasps her bra as his tongue traces patters along her shoulder, down her arm, his teeth tugging at the straps of lace, until the garment can slide off her arms. 

It isn’t until he follows the same pattern with her jeans that her body completely betrays her. He traces the skin above her pants with his tongue before tugging at the denim with his teeth. His fingers soon joining until they are undone, he slides them down her legs slowly – so slowly, that by the time he’s done, her back is arching and she can’t help the breathy moans that escape her. He curls his finger under the lace edges of the last garment remaining, and she knows that he can feel just how  _ready_  she is, until suddenly those are gone too, and she is lying completely bare in front of him, blindfold intact, her breath catching in anticipation.

He slows for a moment though, surprising her yet again. He doesn’t attack her with lips and tongue and teeth, in a frenzy of lust, as she had expected. Instead he slides his body along hers his skin heated, the same as hers. (Somewhere along the way, he’s divested himself of most of his clothes and she can’t believe she was so distracted that she missed those sounds, the slide of his leathers down his legs, or the buckle of his belt unlatching.)

His head reaches hers, she can tell, because she can feel his breath against her neck as his hand cradles her face. His fingers trace her features – her brow, her cheekbones, along to her lips, his thumb tracing her lower lip, making her nerves tingle and her body restless.

She catches his thumb between her teeth and he growls in approval of her aggression.

She moans his name as he drifts down, the tension inside her increasing as he thumbs her nipples, tugs at them with his teeth, rolls them between his fingers – all designed to drive her mad until she begs him to touch her. 

He complies, as his mouth drifts down her torso, to her waist, and lower. He teases her with his presence, his fingers sliding along her; just enough that her hips rise for more, but not enough that it quells the ache. His mouth teases her skin below her belly button, her hipbones, her inner thighs, until she moans his name again. He smiles against her as he finally presses his lips to her core.

(After she comes apart, she slides the blindfold off her face, and cups his face between her hands. She presses light kisses to his mouth, in between promises to return the favor.)  


	23. hope

It's been so long since he's loved an actual, living person -- flesh and blood, shared warmth and beating hearts -- that he forgets how messy, and complicated, and  _difficult_  that it can be.

(Bae -- or Neal, though he sometimes bristles at the unfamiliar name -- fails to count. When their paths crossed again whatever love he'd held for the boy was faded for the man, clouded and murky, forgotten in the face of vengeance and blood feuds and competition until it was too late.)

He considers whether  _this_  is what Zelena was able to see inside of him, how she knew that his love for Emma might also be corrupted for her own gain. She was able to see this side to him, this darkness that he carries every day, this ability to turn something as true and honest as love into something as twisted as vengeance. She somehow decided that this,  _this,_ was truly what he's made of.

(He hopes that the witch was wrong. that his love for her is not sad and selfish but instead real and true, offered with no reservations or recriminations.)

He forgets about the mess in between the excitement of learning how the curves of her body fit along his, the way her eyelashes flutter when he leans in  _just so,_ or the way that a simple touch from her -- like her hand along his thigh as they sit together at Granny's -- burns straight to his heart, or the way her eyes snap to his at the rarest moments burning with some hidden  _need_ for no reason in particular. 

(He forgets until it comes back to him, an ache deep in his gut that forms when he sees the hesitation that sometimes crosses her features, the doubt and worry in her eyes. There's a hole in his heart, he feels sometimes, that could be filled with her, filled  _by_  her.)

There's nothing that Emma Swan could do, or could have done before, that could make him stop loving her, that could take from him the beat that his heart skips every time she presses her lips to his -- lazily tasting his, frantically crushing, always igniting something  _more._ He wonders, though, at her depths. Would she forget her words,  _I'm tired of living in the past,_ if she knew, in gruesome detail, just  _how_  and  _why_  the blasted curse was placed upon his lips. 

(He'll tell her if she asks, he'll  _always_  tell her.)

He watches the way she wrings her hands together in worry sometimes, when she things that he's not watching -- occupied with Henry or Regina, discussing plans to defeat creatures made of ice and snow. His eyes are always on her, and he wonders what she would do if she knew how much he sees, how much he understands.

(He knows there's  _something_  eating at her. He watches the way she changes when they speak of Elsa, their hushed tones and their worry about her magic -- unpredictable and sometimes violent. He notices the way she shrinks as if to disappear.)

It's messy with her silences, the way she'll turn to him, seeking comfort with a touch, the slide of his hand around the curve of her neck, gently cupping his thumb tracing her skin -- and the way she'll bristle at his words, her back setting straighter, the tension in her arms. She doesn't slide away from his touch anymore -- not like she used to -- but her edges are frayed and his words not always a comfort. 

(She always comes back to him -- the hole in his chest filling a bit more each time -- but he  wonders when she'll allow him the same in return.

(Until she does he vows that he will be at her side, fighting, trying,  _hoping_.) 


	24. burn me from the inside out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one is also smuttier, so take heed if you're not into that sort of this

His back is against the wall and her body is aligned to his, her fingers gripping his shoulders, nails digging into his skin until it breaks. She's left his shirt on the floor, barely allowing the door to her apartment close before divesting him of his shirt and pushing him against the door.

He's no clue what has led to this moment, but he's definitely not complaining as her lips graze his neck, teeth nipping, before they travel -- inch by excruciating inch -- back to his lips where he can  _taste_  her. He tastes everything -- her desperation, the balm he watches her swipe across her lips, the rum from earlier. 

She's intoxicating.

He can't help but groan as her body shifts away from his, only to hear her soft laughter in return as she replaces the heat of her body with the heat of her hands. 

Gone from his shoulders, he can still feel a ghost of sensation, where he knows he'll have marks the following day. Marks he'll remember with a smile as they battle more ice monsters, as he fends off glares from her parents.

Her hands are smooth and light as they glide down his chest, pulling slightly on his charms before continuing on their path. He can feel his hips lift in anticipation of her path and suddenly, just like that, her hands are gone and his skin quickly cools.  

He wants the heat back.

He  _needs_  the heat back.

He groans her name, dragging it out, as all of his blood rushes to the exact place where he'd been hoping she would go. And he knows that  _she_ knows it, too, from the way that she pulls back even further and opens her eyes. She stares into his eyes and her cheeks are flushed with the same burning need that fills him.

She smiles, a half-smile, teasing him, enjoying the power she holds over him. (And she does hold it, carefully.) He'd surrendered himself over to her ages ago and he's yet to regret it. Even now when her eyes rake across his body, taking in the way his body can't stop, his hips still moving, seeking any form of comfort. 

Gods, he never thought she'd be so cruel.

He never thought he would love it this much.

He can see the moment where she finally snaps, unable to tease him longer. Suddenly, all the heat is back as she cups him though his pants, her other hand around his neck until she's pulling his hair, tugging as her lips devour his. She's so focused, she barely notices the way his hand strays down,down, down, until his grip reaches her ass, curving around her and squeezing until he has just enough purchase to push them both away from the wall. 

Emma's surprised when she feels that off balance sensation, as he backs her across the room. The back of her knees hit the couch and she stumbles, bringing them both down. 

Quickly recovering, she reaches for the buttons of his pants (she shouldn't miss the laces of his leathers, but somehow she does.), both of them shedding their clothes so rapidly, her hands shaking under his stare, his eyes hot, so much that she can feel it in her stomach, the heat curling up, until her breath catches in her throat. 

Her hands fumble with her bra, the hooks not cooperating, and he must see her rising frustration, her need to feel him against her skin, heat to heat, because his hand joins hers and their fingers brush together as he steals a kiss.

His hand slides back down to her ass, and it's his turn for his fingers to dig into her skin, fingers pressing, stroking, kneading until she knows exactly what he wants. She slides out of his grasp and turns, looking at him over her shoulder, asking him if he likes what he sees. 

With the flash of his eyes, she kneels on the couch and it's mere seconds before his body is behind hers, his breath in her ear, until she hears that small catch as he enters her. (That catch that matches hers, her favorite sound, loving the way that she affects him and makes him  _want._ ) 

And it's not a race, but it feels like one. His hips circling, her rising, the way his hand reaches around her, tracing her stomach lightly until he reaches her. He presses just enough that she's driven even more  _mad_  with it all. She's gripping the couch and she can feel her skin burning all over as they race, faster and faster until the end. 


	25. give me a show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rated m for serious sexy-times. includes bondage and masturbation. you've been warned.

“Oh fuck,” Emma’s voice is broken and gasping for air, as her hips are pressing up and her fingers are working herself, her other hand gripping the chair for leverage.

She’s flushed and slick with sweat, skin bright and pink, her eyes unfocused. He can see just a hint of her naked flesh peeking out from the blue silk and lace that covers her.

“Oh  _FUCK_ ,” She moans again, her back bowing away from her seat and her head rolling back until sections of her hair fall out of the knot atop her head, loose curls with wisps around her face and flowing down her back.

He tugs on the cloth retraining his wrists as she’s driving him mad with her breathy moans and her closed eyes and her fingers – just out of view but teasing him with slow circles, sliding around and dipping inside, until her hips jerk. But she’s too good at this restraint business. He tugs at his bindings one more time, and then settles back to enjoy the view – torturous and glorious.

He’d asked her for a show and she complied. (Though not exactly what he had in mind.) He loved to watch as her clothes fell off her body, revealing her skin underneath, piece by piece. He loved her skin, how it glowed and flushed when they were together, how smooth she felt to his touch. He loved it when she’d tease him with quick glimpses of skin throughout the day – a flash of leg under her skirt as she slides into their regular booth at Granny’s, her shirt riding low in the front as she leans across the table.

She’s a little wicked sometimes and he loves it.

She’d given him a grin, a wicked gleam in her eyes, as he’d tugged her closer to him with his hook, the sharp metal dragging and catching the fabric of her shirt, her eyes widening with heat.

She’d pushed him back, hand on his chest, inching forward until the back of his knees hit her (their) bed. His shirt already off and thrown across the room, she’d knelt in front of him and run her hands up his thighs, just slowly enough that his heart sped up and he’d pressed his hip up, hoping for contact, needing her touch.

She’d teased him her hands for what felt like hours, sliding up and down, slowly  peeling off his pants, inching closer and closer until finally she touched him, cupping him gently, with just enough pressure to have him growling her name.

“Oh right,” she said, as she pulled her hand away, “You wanted a show.”

She’d taken one of his old shirts, threadbare and falling apart, and – ripping it down the middle – fastened his wrists to her headboard.

He could only watch as she strolled across the room, dress falling off her body, and she pulled around a chair, large and plush, his favorite place to sit and watch the harbor from her (their) window. And he could only watch as she ran her thumb across her lips, dragging slowly at her skin. His eyes followed that hand as it slowly made its way down her neck, her chest, until she pushes back the fabric of her bra and traces her own skin until her nipple puckers and her legs shift open just a slight inch more and he can see that she’s trying to be cool but her body is burning hot, hot, hotter –

(He’s tense and straining as she continues to work herself, his hips insistent as he presses up into the air, not even his own hand free to press against himself, to stroke himself in time with her.)  

— Until she gasps one more time, his name on her lips and she opens her eyes to meet his.

He’s completely caught by her and on fire. He’s completely at her mercy.

(It’s how he wants things. Always.)


	26. mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some sexytimes and some general season 4 speculation

“Not that I’m complaining, Swan,” he says as she’s kneeling in front of him, hands releasing the fastenings of his pants – first the button and then the zipper, dragging it down so slowly that he feels he might go mad.

She leans in to nip the skin above his underthings – boxer-briefs she called them, as if the words held some meaning to him – and he tries not to, but he his breath gives a small hitch when she does it.

He can feel her smile against his skin, warm lips on warm skin, and it shoots straight to his heart (and other places further south, in dire need of attention, much more so than his heart).

“But what brought this on, love?” He asks her, as she begins to trace his skin with her fingers, “Didn’t you see what I did?”

(He’s so confused, she should be angry, she should be furious because he failed to listen to her and he almost got hurt, he almost got  _her_  hurt, again.)

(But she does not yell at him, she does not run away this time. Instead, she grabs his hand and drags him home (her home,  _their_  home) and says they’ll talk about it later.)

She hums against him, her mouth almost touching him through the cloth, nudging him with her nose, as her hands slip under the elastic band to slide the soft material down his legs.

Emma is still mostly clothed, though she somehow slipped off her bra and as she’s leaning into his body, her shirt gapes open and flutters back again, giving him glimpses of her breasts – torturous glimpses that are too much and not enough at the same time – her nipples he can see are tight, and he wants them in his mouth. He wants to taste her and tease her with his lips and tongue and show her how much he loves her,  _needs_  her – until she’s crying out with his name in gasping, broken sounds.

However, she has other plans, as her voice goes stern and sends a shiver down his spine, “That’s right.” She pauses for a moment - then reaches out to stroke him gently, teasing and soft in contrast to her tone as she continues. “You’ve been a bad, bad, pirate. How shall I punish you?”

She peers up at him, and he takes a chance. “Don’t punish,” he says as his hand flies down to tangle in her hair, gripping her golden strands tightly as he pleads, “Show mercy instead.”

(“You have to be more careful with yourself.” She whispers to him later that night as they are wrapped up naked limbs in tangled sheets. “You’re too important to me.” She continues, as she places a soft kiss on his chest where his heart lies below. Then she rests her head against him, listening to the beating of his heart. Keeping it safe.)


	27. i bleed, you bleed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS WARNING. If you are not keeping up with season 4 spoiler images, DO NOT READ. THIS IS HIGHLY SPOILER-Y. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.
> 
> SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS WARNING. If you are not keeping up with season 4 spoiler images, DO NOT READ. THIS IS HIGHLY SPOILER-Y. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.
> 
> SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
> 
> (PUTTING HERE, TOO, JUST FOR DOUBLE PROTECTION.)

She finds him walking along the harbor in the morning. She assumes been awake all night from the way that his skin is darkened below his eyes, more than smudged eyeliner.

His eyes remain dull as they snap to hers at the sound of his name.

(She feels strange calling him  _Hook_ , what with his other hand magically there – suddenly, shockingly, magically.)

(She does it anyway, because that is who he is. Or at least,  _part_  of who he is.)

He brings his hand to his face, dragging it down his skin, pinching the bridge of his nose. That’s when she notices the bruising starting to form, his skin cracked and red and she can’t help herself as she reaches out and grabs his hand.

“Shit, are you bleeding?” She gasps.

(Stupid question, Emma).

Whatever happened that night, after their date crashed and burned spectacularly, must have been fueled by the rum that she can smell wafting from him in waves.

“Jesus, Killian,” she says, “You could have called me.”

He doesn’t say anything, merely lifts his shoulder as his body sways into hers.

(He’s still drunk. Of course he is.)

She manages to get him back to Granny’s, where she still has her room (She really needs to take a look at that apartment Henry’s been on about), with no help from him. Once he realized that she wasn’t mad – or at least, not yelling at him yet – his eyes brightened just enough that she was reminded of the beginning of their date last night.

_Date_ , she sighs, as she remembers the way his hand reached out to hers under the table, his thumb tracing her palm as she tried to concentrate on the waiter reciting the specials.

His eyes looked almost the same as they did then.

“Off to the shower with you,” she says as she pushes him towards the small unit at the end of the hallway.

(He’s not too drunk to cop a little feel while she does so, his hand gliding down her back and smoothing over her jeans with a slight press.)

“You could join me, you know,” he murmurs as he pulls her body close, his lips drifting close to her ears, his mouth almost close enough to touch.

She pushes him away because there’s no way their first time together will be drunk (and in a shower, no less), but she does slide her hands up his torso, to rest in his hair as she redirects his mouth for a kiss.

“Some other time,” she says, after, as she nudges him away from her and towards the shower, “I promise.”


	28. untitled - future fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh, wow, this got really fluffy.
> 
> Emma's beginning to realize that it's not important how and when things happen. Just that they DO happen.

Emma says all the time, “A normal life isn’t in the cards for the savior.” She says it as they run after snow monsters, she says it as they battle snow queens with icy hair and icy veins and icy eyes.

She says it when then next danger comes along, after Elsa has settled and reunited with her family, after Will has made his way back to Wonderland. She says it as they meet, hushed tones in the middle of the breakfast rush at Granny’s, her mug of cocoa and his of coffee steaming in the middle of the table, as their feet press together underneath, out of sight but still making her heart expand.

(And if she’s beginning to wonder if this is normal, she keeps it to herself, a secret next to her heart, the same place she keeps the memories of unguarded moments, of a hand along her back and a flash in his eyes, voice calmly explaining to her that she can do this.)

He’d never tell her, “I told you so,” but she’d see the knowing glances between her parents and she can’t have that.

But even so it changes. The words stay the same, but the time after next, she gives Killian a small wink when she says it, her fingers twined with his under the table, pressing into her leg, her stomach fluttering. She and Regina let Henry attend the council meeting (he’s taller than them both at that point) but he still doesn’t get a sword (yet, but one day soon).

They never have a chance for a large wedding, but there’s something lovely about the promises they make to each other one sunny Saturday afternoon, standing next to a piece of driftwood, the ocean behind them, endless and blue, Henry and her parents off to the side.

(She promises him to never run away and promises to her that he will follow her anywhere and when their lips meet, she knows, with absolute clarity, that there’s nothing she would change.)


	29. untitled - Emma angst

Emma’s perfected the art of running away. It’s the only thing she was ever really good at. Packing exactly the right amount of items in her bag so it’s not too heavy and she has enough until her next stop.

When she was younger, they would find her and bring her back. They would find her huddled under a jacket with another kid or two for warmth.  _Emma, it’s time to come back_ , they would say. As if they were taking her someplace she actually belonged.

( _What the hell is home, anyway?_ She would think as she trudged along beside her social worker, defeated and stuck, the panic already starting to crawl under her skin.)

It’s not until this final time she runs, not until she feels freedom for the first time that she realizes she has wings. It’s also when she realizes that at seventeen, she’s truly alone, when she realizes that eventually people will let you leave them.

(Fight or flight, she would ask when her skin started to tighten and her chest would constrict. Fight or flight, she ask and sometimes she would stay and sometimes she would fly.)

She answers fight now - more often than not. Even when she’s furious, blazing mad with fists clenching she sees it through. And when she’s terrified, shaking with a peer she doesn’t always understand, she tells him not to touch her but also not to leave her. Because she remembers the way his face fell the last time that she ran away, she remembers his words when he finally realized that he could ask her for things, too, and that he didn’t always have to  _give._

(Home can be a place. It can be a person. It can be a moment, it can be strong arms that wrap around her body, heart beating in her chest, pulsing at her wrist. It can be a moment when she thinks she no longer has wings until he lends her his, as long as she promises to do the same for him too.)


	30. untitled - Killian Jones Feels

It's the way her hair gleams gold in the sunlight, and the way that her eyes widen in desire when his lips glide along her skin. It's the way her voice gasps his name, breathless as his hand presses her hips. 

It's the way her shoulders tense when she's preparing for a fight, and the way she stands ready, arms poised and fingers curling into a fist. It's the way her eyes gleam fierce green as she reaches for a weapon and the way her voice growls. 

(It's also the way that her hands trail along his body in the mornings, wrapping around his waist as she presses her skin against his, her hand covering his against his heart. It's the softness that's there when they're relaxing on her couch, Henry between them, sharing stories from his day.)

It's the way that she thinks she's un-catchable as she runs, but the ease with which her body melts into his when he catches her. The fast pace of her heart as their bodies collide, and the steady pace that he feels when he traces the skin at her wrist, following the pattern of her tattoo as she tells him all her stories. 

Zelena once asked him if he still loved her, broken heart and all - and he did then and still does - but it's also the way he knows that  _love_  is just a word. Fleeting and impermanent, it can disappear with the wind, while she is solid and real and  _his._

 


	31. Knowledge

Emma learns that she likes the way his hand brushes against the small of her back when they're in the kitchen and he shifts behind her to grab something from the cupboards. It's like he whispers  _I love you_ with every small touch.

(The press of his body against hers, sliding together as everything disappears.)

(His fingers in her hair, tangling further, pulling tighter with every thrust of his hips.)

(His lips on her skin, mouth hot and wet, branding her as his.)

**.**

Emma learns that she likes the sound of his voice best in the mornings, rough and sleepy, soft as he moans her name. It's a secret that's theirs alone. She likes having something that's  _hers._

(Her hands wandering his skin, warm with sleep, flushed and hard and straining at her touch.)

(He always says her name -  _Emma, Emma, Emma_  - when he comes, voice broken and gasping, her lips around him.)

(He returns the favor with murmurs of delight at her body, her taste, her feel, all in that delicious voice.)

**.**

Emma already knew that she doesn't want to be without him, that she wants him - pirate and all. But she learns that she can say it without fear, say it without hesitation. She learns that she can look in his eyes and  _ask_  for it.

(His hand cupping her cheek, his fingers gently stroking, the way his eyes darken as he watches her lips form the words,  _please_  and  _more._ )

(The cold metal of his hook, gliding along her skin, holding her in place. The shivers down her spine,  _god, yes._ )

(The tightness in her stomach the first time she asks him to  _stay_ , and the ease with which he replies,  _always_.)


	32. Definition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains season four speculation, so feel free to avoid if you don't want to have even hints of spoilers/spec.

She presses her hand against his chest and feels the beating of his heart.

(She remembers doing this before - a different man, a decent time, a different tear in need of mending.)

He’s just as broken and though he doesn’t doubt he has a heart, he doubts his heart is worth her care.

(It beats her name underneath her fingers, the hair on his chest surprisingly soft, and says, “This is what defines you. Not flesh and bone or sharp metal.”)


	33. Navigation

One must be patient to navigate the ocean, he learns. A sailor must trust that the stars and the winds align as calculated, that the path your ship forges through the waves is not careening into disaster. A sailor must trust the crew to pull their share of the weight along the way - and must

(He discovers the similarities over time.

Navigating the mind of a woman is much the same as sailing.)

**.**

For all her vigor and lust for life, for all of her easy ways with his crew and her natural strength, it was the dark corners of Milah's mind that took careful navigation. She taught him how to read a woman's body, the sighs and moans and hitches of breath. She also taught him how to read the tension in her shoulders and shadows in her eyes, and she taught him how to share his heart again.

(Perhaps - despite their differences - that has eased his way to understanding Emma now.

Then again, perhaps not, he thinks some nights. Those nights that are lonely, when he feels that maybe he's  _misunderstood._ )

**.**

He's stubborn and he presses on.

(Maybe some lessons learned from Liam have stuck despite the things that  _he_  pushes down to the deep corners of his mind. Hiding honor in sarcasm and hiding his heart among barbs.

He's not thankful that the knowledge is still there until he wipes the tears from her skin, his knuckles brushing her gently as she peers at him through spiky lashes.)

**.**

Milah was quick where Emma is slow. Quick to laugh and enchant, quick to flash with anger.

**.**

Emma's smiles never come easily, but are always  _earned._

**_._ **

There's treasure, and then there's  _treasure_ , and he's learned the difference over his many years. There's the gold-spun silk of her hair and there's the fierce strength of her heart.

(He's not afraid of rough seas, of waves frothing as they try to overtake him.

Some may call him a bloody fool, but he knows the worth of whom he fights for.)


	34. patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my reaction to episode 4x01

"Be patient," she said. (Which is something that he knows how to do.)

"I’ve all the time in the world," he said. (Though he wonders if she heard him, and even if she did, had she really  _heard_  him?)

.

He can hear the soft creak of the hardwood floors as she creeps up the stairs at Granny’s. Sometimes he cursed the small space and, charming decor aside, the age of the building leads to thin walls and countless nights spent trying not to listen to the rustling of her nightly routine.

Tonight is different, though, because she’s smiled and said, “Be patient.”

She’d smiled and pressed her lips to his and for a brief moment he’d felt that certainty - the one that keeps pushing him in her direction no matter how quickly she runs away after. (It’s with that same certainty that his voice strains tight against his throat as he tells her that, yes, she is avoiding him and she can’t deny it, thank you very much.)

Her steps slow and pause as she approaches the stretch of hallway where their doors are. He likes to think, laying in the wireframe bed in his room, that she’s considering knocking on his door. He likes to picture her standing at the handle and placing her knuckle to rap on the wood. (He’d let her in, he always will.)

(He’s beginning to see that knowledge stick within her, now, with her fluttering lashes and more frequent smiles and the way that her hand reached out to him - just before pulling back.)

He’s sure that this isn’t patience, but he wants to see her - once more before closing his eyes to rest - so he slides out of bed and when he reaches the door, he has to pause at the rapid beat of his heart. (From the rush, or from the thought of seeing her again, it matters not.)

.

She’s standing outside the door to her room - not his - staring at the handle as if it were poison. He leans against the wall in the hallway, folding his arms across his chest. (And if it hides the stump where his brace usually resides, he finds he doesn’t mind that. She’s not ready for it yet.)

( _He’s_  not ready for that moment yet.)

"Do you want to talk about it, love?" He asks quietly.

She startles at his voice but he can see that she’s not angry, as she turns to face him.

She shakes her head, but also says, “I know it’s not  _just_  Regina, but I wasn’t lying earlier. It weighs on me and she won’t listen to me.”

He doesn’t reply, but their eyes meet and she moves closer to him as she continues, “I know, I can’t force her to see my perspective until she’s good and ready.”

He arches his brow at her and watches a quick flush spread across her cheeks and disappear just as quickly. But she still doesn’t turn away, she inches ever closer to him until her hands are on his arms and she’s pushing them aside, running her hand up. Up to his neck when his muscles tense and cord and her fingers continue to stroke gently.

"And the other?" His voice is rough and broken because the heat from her hands on his body is spreading down. Down to his belly, down even further south. And he wants her, he  _wants_  her so damned much. (But this important other is haunting him.)

(He can admit that now, now that her skin touches his and he’s not lying alone in bed, wishing.)

Her eyes cloud as she whispers, “It’s not about you. I promise. It’s me. It’s always me.”

And that has to be enough for now because her body stretches up and he leans down, helpless to do anything but give into the wanting.

.

It lasts longer than in the forest, her lips moving on his, his pressing back. It’s just as soft and quiet, though, and he likes the calm of it after the mad rush of earlier.

It makes him think of still nights on the Jolly, when the water was calm and soothing, when it felt like more than a ship, when it felt like home.


	35. untitled (post 4x02 smut/fluff)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got a request on tumblr for some post-ice cave smut/fluff. This is what happened.

The blankets are warm, but not nearly enough, as her body still shivers. Her family surrounds her, their hands touching her hair, brushing it away from her face, Killian’s hand stroking her arm ceaselessly. (Her family, her  _family_ , sometimes it still doesn’t feel real and then she remembers how easy it was for “my dad” to slip off her tongue when speaking to Elsa within the cavern of ice.)

And oh, God, Killian is her  _family_ , too, and now everybody knows it by the way he’s latched onto her and she to him. He never let her go, from the moment they reached her outside the ice cave, his arms lifting her body and cradling her in his arms, carrying her to the loft. They know it by the way her modern-fairytale pirate grabs the space heater and pushes his way back to her side in a flash. 

(She could almost say she loves him for it, if she were the effusive type. Instead she leaves it at a strong liking, even in her weakened state. But she misses the brief moment where their hands where clasped together and she laced her fingers with his. She misses that spark that formed right then, the friction of their hands creating a tug in her heart, in her stomach.)

.

Eventually her family trickles away. David takes Elsa to Granny’s to set her up with a room for the night and Henry rushes to Regina’s. (Her boy, leaving with a whisper of her support in his ear. She watches him stride out the door with his determined face and determined gait, and she feels another type of swell in her heart.)

It’s Mary Margaret who suggests that maybe she run a bath, and then makes herself scarce with baby Neal, giving Killian and quick glance from the corner of her eyes as she climbs the stairs.

"I can go help David with the food," Killian motions to go. (She can feel the hesitation in his every movement, the way that he’s still touching her, his thumb still stroking lightly, and his chin nudging against her forehead. 

"No," she whispers, as she pulls her head back from it’s place on his shoulder, and smiles at him. "I’d like you to stay."

.

"You know," Emma says later as she sinks deeper into the frothy water of the tub, "I hear that the best way to stay warm is actually the heat from somebody else’s body."

She knows that she’s practically making him an invitation with a statement like that. (Blame him, though with all his talk of snow monsters and ice walls and dates. If they’re dating, Emma considers, she thinks she might like to explore more of the benefits than she’s currently getting.)

(And if it also has to do with the panic in his voice as he called her name - a faint memory, blocked by descending hypothermia - then she hopes that maybe he feels the same way. That he also needs this  _connection_ , this  _promise_ , that she is here and alive and well.)

There’s been a shift between the two of them. She’s still terrified - about her magic, about her past - but she’s been done with the denial of this man’s effect on her for days and tonight’s action has solidified this sentiment within her. If she harbored any doubts about  _him_ , they were well-erased the moment she saw him through the hole in the ice and threw herself in his arms.

Now, as inconvenient as it is in her parents loft, she want to feel the heat of his skin against hers. She wants to feel that pull deep in her belly, the one that says more, more, more. The one that says just  _feel_  and she can worry about the rest tomorrow.

It’s Killian who succumbs to reason, though, as he makes his way to the head of the tub, and he slides his fingers through her wet hair, massaging her scalp as he goes. 

"It’s probably best if I don’t join in, lass." He pauses as he presses a kiss to her forehead. "This time, at least." 

.

She awakens to the sun streaming through the curtains and a body curled against her back. She vaguely remembers falling asleep in the tub and strong arms covering her with her mother’s bathrobe. She recalls a hushed, “sweet dreams, love,” as she drifted deeper into the warmth of her old bed. 

(She’s been staying at Granny’s for so long that she’s forgotten how much she loves the old bed at the loft with it’s lumpy mattress and creaky frame. It’s the first bed that ever felt like  _hers._ )

 

"What time is it?" She murmurs as she snuggles back into the warm of Killian as his arm wraps around her waist, his hand splaying against her stomach. 

"Late," he says as he presses a kiss to the curve of her neck. "Your family is at breakfast. They wanted you to rest."

"You weren’t hungry?" She asks as his hands begins to tangle with the folds of terrycloth, inching their way to her skin underneath. 

(Skin that is warm again, skin that will soon be on fire if his hand keeps moving in it’s current direction.)

It’s been so long since she’s woken up this way. She never spent the night like this with Walsh, because of Henry and her hesitations, and now she’s glad that she held back. She likes the way she woke up with morning with the scent of Killian surrounding her, his body pressed against hers, and his hands on her body.

He nips at her ear before say, “Not for food, at least.” 

She can hear the teasing in his tone - the voice that says, maybe I’m a little serious, but I won’t hold you to anything. 

The thing is, though, that she wants him to hold her to it. She wants him to say something like that and  _mean_ it. She know that he’s all to willing to follow her lead (and oh, how she appreciates it), but she’s also laying in bed, finally warm, and her pirate-almost-sort-of boyfriend has his hand tracing her skin and his hips pressing into her and she  _wants._

Her legs shift restlessly against his, tangling in the sheets, her feet making contact with his legs. Sometime over the course of the night, he’s changed from his leathers to something softer, something that rides up his legs with the shifting of hers, causing her feet to touch his bare legs. 

It sends her over the edge. 

She shifts her body so she’s facing him and she takes his face between her hands. 

"What are you doing?" He asks, even though his eyes darken when they meet hers. 

"Shhh," she says in return, as her lips find his. 

It doesn’t take much effort for her tongue to slide along the seam of his lips and his mouth to open to hers. It doesn’t take much more time for their bodies to cling together, his grip on her hips and her leg hitched over his. Their bodies move together as their lips remain fused and her fingers tangle in his hair. 

Killian breaks away first and whispers, “We’ve not much time, love, as much as I’d like to continue.” His hand works against his own statement, though, as it slides under her shirt and cups her breast, his fingers brushing her nipples, tracing the skin lightly. 

Her hips move against his and his lips find her neck, nuzzling into her, his tongue tracing a pattern on her skin.

"Please," she whimpers, as her hips move against him and he huffs out a short laugh. 

"Never let it be said," he punctuates between presses of lips to her neck, "That KIllian Jones left a lady wanting."

He slides his hand down, down along her torso, loosening the belt of her robe, until he finds her aching and ready. She grips his hips as he slides in one finger, then two, his thumb circling her clit. 

She can feel it building so quickly, her body starved for this she realizes once it’s happening. The way his fingers fill her, pumping in and out, the rhythm matching her hips. She tugs on the drawstring of his pants but he only shakes his head - still resting in the curve of her neck. 

"This is for you, love," he says as he continues and it doesn’t take much longer than that. 

His lips find hers again as he moves and she moves, her hips undulating against him, until she comes quietly with a shiver up her spine, her body shuddering slightly. 

"Thank you," she says, and he laughs. 

"No," she continues and she pulls away until their eyes meet. "Thank you for being there."

He brushes her lips with another kiss as he asks, “Where else would I be?”


	36. untitled (fast and desperate)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I received a request on tumblr for something 'rough and desperate'. This is a bit more 'fast' than 'rough'. But here goes...

Her hands push his jacket off his arms with a quick motion. As the leather falls to the ground with a thud, her arms grip his shirt and her mouth finds his. Her lips are quick and she presses her body into his with such force that their bodies sway backward - back, back, until they reach the wall of his room with another thud. 

(She'd been quiet and self-contained all night after being released from the hospital. She was still cold, he knew, even though she didn't say it. He could tell by the way her body released small shivers every now and then.)

(Now it's like she can't get enough and when he leans back to tell her that they should be quiet - there are other's taking refuge from the cold at the inn this evening - she silences him with another kiss.)

Her teeth are tugging at his lips while his hook has made quick work of her shirt - slicing through the thin cotton with a rip - which made her even more desperate. She's tugging so hard she breaks skin, but when she pulls back to apologize he growls and slides his hook into the belt loop of her jeans, bringing her body back to his. 

She's rolling her hips and she can feel him against her - hard and straining. She wedges a hand between them to cup him through the leather before making quick work of his laces. 

He pushes at her, directing her to the bed and they fall in a tangle of limbs and clothes half-falling off their bodies. 

"I can't wait," she gasps as their hands find each other again - his sliding her jeans down her legs, hers pushing his down his hips. She wriggles her legs to help him with her jeans - blasted infernal skinny-legged trousers - before he can bring his hand back to her center. The place where she's already slick and ready, with her hips thrusting up as his fingers slide inside. 

"More," she groans. "More." 

And then she whispers his name, "Killian." 

Her hands are working him, and his pants are still tight around his legs, but he has just enough room to move. She makes quick work of the condom and then he's inside of her with one quick thrust - and they both gasp. 

His lips find her shoulder and he bites down as he moves, his teeth making indents on her skin, his need to mark her - somehow, some way - making itself known. She likes - loves it even - given her response, the low mewl that escapes her lips and the way her body becomes more slick, easing his way. 

(It doesn't take long for them to come apart the first time, and the next is slower as they carefully remove the rest of their clothes, and revel in each other.

They also leave some extra money with Granny in the morning - Emma flushing slightly at her knowing eye - to pay for the quilt, quite ripped through by his hook.)


	37. untitled (desperate and needy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was prompted on tumblr for something 'desperate' and 'needy'. This ensued.

He hasn’t stopped touching her all night. At first it was just his hand - some fingers tangling in her hair, or brushing her cheek gently. It’s like he needs to know that she’s alive by touching every inch of her body. 

Eventually though, he gets more insistent, with the nudges of his nose against the back of her neck, his arms wrapping around her body. She can feel the heat building between them with every moment as she presses her hips back and he presses his forwards - and she suddenly wants much more than his arms wrapped around her. 

And then her clothes are being ripped from her body - torn fabric and buttons flying - and she swears it’s never been like this before. But she’s doing it to and she’s fumbling with the laces of his leathers until his hand pushes hers away. 

"Let me," he says, his eyes dark. 

.

He pushes her down on the bed, completely nude, with him only in disarray, and his lips and his tongue and his hand and his hook pass along her body in waves until all she can do is slide her legs along the sheets and murmur incoherent words of want. He’s teased her and to the brink, his lips on her clit, his tongue circling, his fingers working her until she’s about to burst. 

He’s flipped her on her stomach and pressed the cool metal of his hook along her skin, down the curve of her spine, up the length of her legs - his lips following his every move until her skin is flushed and sweating and her hips are rising for more. 

All he does is push her hair away from her ear and whisper, “Not yet.”

.

He takes her from behind, hips in the air as he holds her in place with her hair. He flips her to her side, his hook digging into her hips and his lips on the back of her neck. She can barely breathe as he presses her back to the bed, her leg propped on his shoulder and their bodies fused as closely as possible. 

She’s panting and delirious as his lips find hers and he presses - softly - whispering words of love, words of lust, words she doesn’t even understand because all she can do is feel.

Finally, he flips their bodies one more time until he’s on his back and he’s watching her with eyes glazed over. His voice is broken as he says, “Now.”


	38. untitled (life-affirming)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was prompted on tumblr for something 'life-affirming' or 'possibly after some TLK scenario'. Enjoy!

Emma can't get enough of him - the way his body lifts in delight as her lips trace his skin, the deep groan in his voice as she nips at his skin with her teeth. She's drifted down his neck, along his arm to the tips of his fingers, drawing the pad of his thumb into her mouth and biting down. 

Now she's gliding along his abdomen as his muscles contact at the touch of her lips. She flicks out her tongue to trace the ridges of his muscles - and the other bumps and slashes that mark his body. She whispers, "I'm sorry," over and over and over while she tastes the salt of his skin.

. 

He tries to thread his fingers through her hair, to bring her face to his, so he can look deep into her eyes and say, "I love you."

(He's allowed to  _say_  it now, instead of just feel and feel and feel.)

.

He keeps trying to draw her body to his, but she eludes his every touch. It's his turn, she whispers, with every press of her lips to his skin. He feels like he's on fire, burning with want, burning with desire - to touch and taste her in return. But still she pushes his shoulders down as her hand works his cock, her grip light and teasing, making a fist around him and gliding until his hips press upwards, in a plea for more. 

.

It's been an hour and she hasn't let him come, and his skin is prickling, tingling, desperate for release. She's covered practically every inch of his  body with her lips, paying close attention to his scars with a gentle touch, and his tattoos - punctuated with brief stories about their meaning. 

She's replaced the hand around his cock with her mouth, and he's drowning in her wet warmth as she slides - up and down - and finally allows his hand to tangle in her hair, pulling and guiding until she slides her hands to his thighs and grips tight, keeping him in place. 

He swears she's going to let him finish this time, until she pulls away. Her eyes are glazed with lust and even though he hasn't touched her, he knows that she''s just as ready as him. 

. 

When she finally lets him fall apart, she's in his lap, and their fused together as tightly as possible. He's sitting up and her legs are wrapped around his waist as they move together. Her lips move from his shoulder to his neck to his ear and then - finally - to his lips. 

Their breath mingles as she allows him release and takes her own. 

.

"I love you," she whispers against his neck. "I love you."


	39. untitled (wedding night)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reply to 5-7 sentence drabble prompt: wedding night sex.

There’s a slim band on her finger, one that she’s never quite believed that a ring would adorn in her lifetime, and while not too ostentatious, the ring keeps catching on the sheets as her arm slides above her head, her hand grasping at fabric. 

There’s an empty champagne bottle tipped over on the bedside stand and empty flutes tumbled over next to the bottle - and it’s probably because of this that Emma’s giggling as Killian’s beard brushes against the curve of her neck, her skin sensitive and her mood light.

His hand is on her body, stroking down her skin, exploring her dips and curves with care - and even though he’s done this before many times, each graze, each press of his fingers and glide of his hand makes her heart skip a beat.

He whispers, “I love you,” against her skin, his lips tracing the words against her with care - she’d say the words back but her voice is caught in her throat as he reaches the curve of skin above her breasts, pulling the delicate lace to expose her. 

She’d thought it might be more desperate than this - they’ve been so busy the past few weeks with the impulsive proposal and the small, intimate ceremony that they’ve barely seen one another - but instead he’s taking his time as he tastes every inch of her skin until she’s itching for more. 

She makes a low whining noise - from the back of her throat - and she can feel his reaction, a quick nip of her skin with his teeth, low on her body, so close and yet so far away. 

"Killian," she groans as he teases her with his mouth, pressing his lips to every inch of her skin, making her needy, greedy, ready for  _more._


	40. untitled (sad killian+pampering emma)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Requested on tumblr: sad Killian + pampering Emma. Not your traditional pampering.

The first time it happens, Emma's not sure what to do. He's been so open to her, with his  _doey eyes_  (as Regina likes to call to her attention with a pointed glance) and his hand on her arm and the way his voice deepens when he says, "Swan."

So when she wakes up one day - early, with the first peek of light through the window in her (their) room - and he's already awake and sitting on the edge of her (their) bed with his head bowed, it's easy for her to place  _her_  hand on  _his_  arm and gently say his name. 

It's not until he turns around that things are  _really_  different. His eyes, which are usually so bright and open to her - even in his pain, when he's spoken of Liam, spoken of his father, spoken of Milah - even during all these quiet moments with whispered voices and shared pain, he's never been so  _closed_ to her as he is now. 

(Emma knows that there's still much Killian hasn't shared with her and she sometimes wonders if he feels like there are things he  _cannot_ share with her. But she's no naive young girl. She knows what pirates are in her world and she knows that there's moments in his past - that may or may not regret - moments that acknowledge the cruelty of life.)

When he fails to respond to her gentle query, she brushes the sleep-wrecked hair from his face and places her palm against his cheek. Despite the heat that still remains under her the sheets - warmth from their joined bodies - his face is cold. He doesn't pull away from her, not physically. But his eyes close and she knows that somehow her touch has pained him. 

"I'll make some coffee," she says as she reaches to the floor and pulls on her bathrobe. 

.

Emma has a shift at the station and though she senses that Killian would prefer to be alone, she doesn't know how to leave him when he feels so cold to her touch (still) and his eyes are still shuttered to her gaze. 

She cannot read him and it kills her.

She leaves the table and pulls out her cell to call the loft, thinking that maybe David would be able to take her shift. 

As she flips through her phone, though, her eyes are caught by the name of the harbormaster. The same harbormaster who had called her days before to let her know about an abandoned boat down in the marina. 

It concerns her, this abandoned boat that seems to have appeared out of nowhere, though she's made no moves on the information. They've finally had a span of quiet weeks with no curses threatened or villains appearing in town, and she's enjoyed the time to just  _be._  

But as she watches Killian pacing the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and wiping down the counter - even though she insisted before she left the room that she was taking care of him today - it occurs to her that he hates to feel useless. She wonders if, perhaps, he's feeling adrift and listless because there is no danger lurking around the corners. 

She calls David, anyway, and asks him to head to the station for a few hours, mentioning the mysterious boat. 

.

It's a thin pretense, and Emma knows that Killian  _knows_. However, she packs a lunch for the two of them (she refuses to call it a picnic) and she grabs his jacket from the stand by the door, dragging him out of the apartment.  

When they arrive at the marina, he visibly brightens as she asks him questions about the boats - what is this one called and why that one's shape is different than the others. He answers all of her questions with the ease of a man whose spent his life on the water and - as he does so - he's distracted enough that the shadow lifts from his eyes for a brief moment. 

It comes back down again as his explanation trails off. But it's enough that Emma knows she's made the right call. She knows that he wants to be  _needed_ , that maybe he even  _needs_  to be useful. 

.

When they return to the apartment - much later in the evening, having found some sort of magical artifact on the boat and brought it to Regina - he says her name without prompting for the first time that day.

"Swan," he says with a smile as he reaches for her arm with his hook. He pulls her back towards his body, where he stands in front of the door, jacket still on. 

"Yeah?" She asks, because his eyes are  _open_  again and she can see that there is still something on his mind.

He pulls her body even closer before he answers, his arms wrapping around her as their bodies align.

"I had a dream last night," he says into her hair as he places a brief kiss at her temple. 

She keeps her body still, because she knows this is important, and she waits.

"It was about my mother."

_Oh_ , she thinks. And -  _oh_  - again. 

She slides her hand down his arm until he releases her and she's able to clasp his hand, lacing their fingers together, as she leads him to the couch. 

"Do you want to tell me about it?" She asks him. 

He smiles at her and, even though it's sad, she knows that he's back with her. 


	41. time will tell (what you can't hear now)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little post-4x03, speculation fic. I couldn’t get the way Elizabeth Mitchell said “Emma” out of my head. And I couldn’t get the fact that Killian has a phone out of my head.
> 
> Oh yeah. And the kissing.

She doesn’t want this feeling to stop tonight. (She doesn’t want it  _ever_  to stop, but that’s another story altogether.) 

But they  _are_  in the middle of the street, in the middle of Storybrooke, outside Granny’s Diner. At some point, she’s going to need to tear herself away from him - if only for the sake of the prying eyes within their town. 

For now, it’s all about the hand fisting her shirt, the way it slid underneath her jacket and gripped the fabric with grasping fingers and increased pressure. It’s the way his hand slides from her shirt to her hair, just as grasping, her hair tangling, caught in his rings. It’s the heavy beating of her heart, thudding against her chest, stretching her ribs. Her torso pressed to his, held together by  _her_  arms around him. 

She can barely catch air, but she wouldn’t change a thing. (Her chest is heaving in the  _good_  way, the best of ways, where lips are fused, exploring, leaving no chance to catch one’s breath.)

.

She thinks about it, using magic and poofing them somewhere, anywhere, away from their very public location. She thinks better of it, though, or rather, thinks very incoherently as his teeth nip at her lips and his tongue slides into her mouth, his hand cupping the nape of her neck, drawing her closer - until she stops trying to think at all. 

It’s not that she  _couldn’t_  move them if she wished.  (She didn’t know that was even possible.)

She learned today that she could move bodies as well as magical flashes of light. (She wishes she hadn’t learned that lesson.)

(She wishes she could forget the sound of that woman’s voice. 

_Emma._

Surprised and maybe a little soft.)

( _Why_  can she recall that tone so clearly?)

.

Later that night she’s back at the loft, her room at Granny’s since abandoned - the room across from  _his_ , where she could hear his anxious footfall late into the night, every night during their fight with Zelena. He’s still there, still renting his room and paying with dubloons. He calls her like he does most nights, and she can picture him carefully pressing buttons, highlighting her name, cradling the phone in his hand. 

(He had traced the small device with his fingers when she’d pressed it to his palm. She remembers his intent gaze as she explained the buttons and how to reach her.)

(It’s like he knew how important it was to her to have a way to reach him. As if moving back to the loft was so far away from her, took him so out of reach.)

His voice is soothing over the line, it melts into her ears and makes her feel as though he’s lying beside her. Her body is warm again at the sound, and though she sometimes feels like she’s ready for  _more_  - more of his heat and fire and the touch of skin to skin - she feels like she shouldn’t until she can be rid of her fear.

So she focuses on this one small thing - that she’s told him the problem isn’t that she doesn’t trust him. No, her lack of trust lies upon the feet of something more nebulous than a person.

(It’s Fate.

Fate has burned a tattoo of destruction upon her life and she might trust the short-term family she has, but she can’t help but wait for the other shoe to drop.

She  _has_ to expect it.) 

(It will hurt less if she does.  _Right?_ )

.

In the morning she wishes she could say that she dreamed about him. Instead, she dreamed of that voice. That soft  _Emma_  and those light blue eyes. Pale, icy blue eyes. The sound the icicles made as they crashed to the ground. 

She wakes up feeling like a kid again, alone, with the light streaming into her room, only highlighting everything she’s missing. 

The past will reveal itself in time. She’d said it to Elsa and she meant it. She just has to be patient.

(She _hates_  being patient.)

.

She listens to his message on the way to the diner. Not the one he left today, the one that just wished her a good morning, but the one from yesterday. The one where his tone was irritated because she didn’t pick up. ( _Why should I carry around this ridiculous thing if you’re never there when I use it?_ )

It makes her smile, her irritated pirate. And it makes her want to be a little less patient about some things - things like his body pressing her to a bed, their limbs entangled, things like her pushing him against the door, his long leather coat falling behind them.

She trips a bit as she passes the ice cream parlor along the way. Was it always there, ever since the first curse or is it new? She wants to fist her hands in her hair in frustration with her lack of clear memories.

(She still cannot get that voice out of her head.

But she also hears another voice, combating it. 

_Give it time, love._ )

.

(And the way his eyes light up when she asks him to dinner makes the muscles of her stomach clench. In the good way.)


	42. of captains (and of hooks and hands)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some 4.04 speculation and musings about Killian and Emma and hooks and hands

When he first dreamed about the Captaincy, it was all about Liam. (He was a teenager, a dirty, rough-around-the-edges street rat until Liam came along.)

Therefore, when he thought about Captain’s he pictured his brother, standing straight and tall, his voice booming orders to his men. (And when he was a Lieutenant on his brother’s ship, he would sometimes take his shore leave alone and grab a pint at a local inn and practice his brother’s booming voice on its patrons.)

He never imagined being a captain any other way – respecting the rules and order, never questioning their rightness, never questioning his heroic feats.

(Until Neverland, on the first occasion.)

.

_Captain Jones_  was his brother.  _Captain Jones_  was honorable.

(He could hear the crew chanting this name –  _Captain Jones! Captain Jones! –_ his naval-issued jacket floating in the water, the smell of the Pegasus sail burning.)

(It didn’t feel real.)

.

He’s killed men in battle before, but it was never like this – the sick feeling in the pit of his gut, an ulcer that grew day-by-day, until he was almost glad to be gone with his hand. To never hear the name  _Captain Jones_  again.

(He declares himself Captain Hook in a drunken spree the night before they sail to Neverland, on the second occasion. The beer sloshes out of his mug as he gesticulates wildly with his arm.

The knot, deep in his gut still, lessens.)

.

Emma never lets him get away with ‘hand’ jokes (though to be fair, he uses them quite a bit) and she never makes him feel as though he is a hindrance.

(Except that one time, and he forgives her, even though she never apologizes fully for that remark.)

( _I have magic, he has one hand._ )

(And she loses her magic because of him, so he lets her slide, no matter how wrong it feels.)

.

Sometimes he even thinks that she likes the hook. Now, when they’ve spent hours wrapped in each other, their bodies pressed together (through clothes, of course) and his arms around her. He’s used his hook to bring her closer to him and he swears he’s seen her eyes flash at that. He’s dug the hook into her back as she’s gripped his coat and brought him closer, moaning at the back of her throat.

She’s touched it playfully, tracing It’s length with a smile.

(And he always wonders at her comfort with it.)

.

It’s like every touch is an apology.

(Actions, not words, he reminds himself when he’s alone in his room, late at night. When he second guesses himself and when his brain tries to convince him that she doesn’t trust him. How could she, she’s the savior and he’s a pirate.)

(Pirates aren’t all bad, he reasons.)

(Actions, not words, he reasons.)

.

He still finds himself standing in front of Gold’s shop after a wide-eyed Henry bursts into the sheriff’s station.

.

(Does she see him as somebody who needs saving?)

.

.

Emma dreams sometimes of cold steel tracing her skin. She dreams of intense eyes and clipped commands.

(She dreams of this in her sleep and she wakes a tumbled mess, her legs tangling in her sheets and her hand drifting down, tracing the skin the above her pajamas, debating how far south to go before slipping under the cotton fabric.)

(She hasn’t done this in a while, she hasn’t had time, or privacy at that. And isn’t an orgasm from herself better than none at all?)

When she comes, gasping into her pillow, she wishes he were there, eyes flashing and hair mussed from her fingers.

.

It’s easier to think about him as the Captain. She sometimes thinks of the Enchanted Forest of the past and the edge to his eyes as he flirted with her over the rum. He was hooked (haha) at first glance and yet never gave the same softness as he sometimes does now.

(She doesn’t know what to do with softness anymore. She’s used to the hard edges and the sharpness, and she somehow trusts it more than open eyes and easy smiles.)

(Sometimes she remembers how Walsh used to smile so easily at her. Having been proven false, she trusts easy smiles less and less.)

(There’s nothing easy about happiness).

.

It’s hard to imagine him with two hands. In fact, she never really has, except the time she scoured Henry’s book for his story.

(It wasn’t there, which makes her wonder. Isn’t Gold a part of the story? And why wouldn’t it be there?)

(Until she remembers Neverland – on  _his_  third occasion there – and Neal’s cave. The way he looked away at mention of Neal’s mother.

And until she remembers the Enchanted Forest – on her first occasion there – and the way he looked away when she announced that Gold must have killed Milah.)

(No wonder the story isn’t there.)

.

When he shows up for their date with two hands she jokes.

_“What should I call you, Captain Hand?”_

But she’s serious.

She fell in love with Hook.

(At least she thinks this is love.)

( _I can’t lose you, too.)_

Though she calls him Killian now, he’s still Hook.

She  _wants_  him to be Hook.

She told him she trusts him and she does. He may be a pirate and she may be the savior but she waves away the labels because she is who she is and he is who  _he_  is – and they are  _them._

.

(Does he think that she sees him as broken?)


	43. as i move my feet towards your body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I definitely don't expect anything like this to happen after the date. You can blame several tumblr images that got me thinking about flowy skirt and easy access and a good old-fashioned alleyway-makeout.

He crowds her against the wall near the back entrance to Granny’s – the one that allows her guests to forego the diner and the lobby and head directly for the stairs to the rooms. His hands are roaming every inch of her skin as he presses her against the wall.

Her skirt rides up as one hand slides up her leg and wraps her leg around his hip, the other anchored in her hair. The hand in her hair pulls and tugs as she gasps against his lips when his hips hit her in just the right spot. The one that makes her think about sliding her hands down to his pants, and digging her hands into him.  

But right now, she’s gripping his jacket to keep her balance as  _his_  hand reaches  _her_  ass, and gives it a quick smack that sends vibrations through her body, before kneading against her skin. His fingers reach under the satin of her panties until he has a tight grip on them. And when he pulls, they hit her just right – creating friction at her clit that causes a deep moan at the back of her throat.

She can feel his lips curve into a smile and she stops whatever comment he’s about to make with a kiss, pulling tighter on his jacket, and sliding her tongue between the seam of his lips. The hand in her hair tightens as she does this and she swears that her heart is beating as fast as if she just chased a snow monster down the street.

As much as she wants to continue, she still has the presence of mind to  _not_  have sex with her pirate for the first time in the alley behind Granny’s. Oh, but how it makes her ache to pull away, dropping one hand from his jacket to press against his shoulder, the tingling of her skin continuing as he removes his hands from her and takes a step back.

His eyes are dark and glassy as she takes one of his hands in hers and leads him into the doorway. He arches a brow at her and she gives him a half-smile in return, a simple lift at the corner of her lips.

They make it halfway up the stairs before he’s at her again, pulling at her skirt and pressing his body into hers. She stumbles on the stairs as he tries to maneuver them against the wall but her heels with the match and they tumble down against the stairs. He catches their fall and helps her to her feet and then they make their way to his room.

Once inside, she takes charge before he can and she pushes his jacket off his shoulders and down his arms and with the momentum, ensures that he continues back – until the back of his knees hit the bed and he lands with a soft bounce.

He starts to say something – probably her name – but she silences him with her lips again, as she shifts her body down to straddle him. She grips the back of his neck and his hands slide along her back as their centers press together, her hips moving against him in a slow, rocking rhythm.

Her skin is on fire now, the tingling spreading across her arms, along her legs, until it reaches her stomach where it forms a deep ache. She wants him – this man who’s come to mean so much to her. And she knows that part of her isn’t ready ( _I can’t lose you, too_ ) but there’s another part of her, the part that’s rocking against him more and more intently, that aching for a release.

His hands drift down until they’re both at her ass again, slipping underneath the satin, and bringing her body closer, pressing harder, changing her rhythm until she pulls away from his lips with a moan, seeking air.

“Emma,” he groans as his mouth seeks hers again, repeating her name several times in between soft presses of lips.

“I know,” she gasps, “It’s almost too much.”

He stills at that, their bodies still pressed together, but he stops their motion so he can ask, “In a bad way?”

He nudges her nose with his, until she tilts her head back and their eyes meet.

“No,” she whispers. “In the  _best_  way, Killian.”

His fingers dig into her at that statement and she presses her hips down harder. His mouth moves from her lips until he reaches her neck and the curve of her shoulder, left bare from the sleeves of the dress dipping low.

One hand reaches further and his fingers slide against her slick flesh as she begins to work the buttons of his vest and shirt. She sighs as they gently trace her. The friction of his erection rubbing against her clit already has her on edge, and she’s fairly certain it won’t take long to go over the edge. He seems to sense this, too, and he increases the pressure of his hands just enough so that she’s riding out an orgasm before long, small flutters spreading along her skin.

They remain motionless for a while, his face resting in the curve of her neck and her forehead pressing down on his head, as she tries to catch her breath.

“That was – “ she begins, but he interrupts her with, “ – my line, love.”

She laughs softly and finishes her thought, “Amazing.”

She can feel his lips form a grin against her skin and she draws back to give him room to do the same. She slides her hands down from their grip on his half-open shirt to rest on the tops of his thighs. He’s grinning at her, even though his eyes are glazed and his hair is mussed and he’s still hard, pressed against her.

“Does that surprise you?” He asks cheekily, making her laugh.

She doesn’t answer him, though. Instead she slides her body down until her knees hit the hardwood floor. She might have some bruises tomorrow, but at the moment all she cares about is returning the favor to her grinning pirate. And maybe wiping said grin off his face and replace it with that deep groan she heard earlier when they were in the alley.

She makes quick work of his pants and already his expression becomes more intent as she releases him from his pants and watches as his eyes darken even more with a few mere strokes of her hand. He lifts his hips for more, but she likes the way he becomes more desperate with every light stroke – aching for that elusive  _more_.

Finally she takes pity on him and one of his hands takes a tight grip on what’s left of her ponytail as she wraps her lips around him. His grip tightens with her every move, until he’s making that deep groan in the back of his throat that she loves to hear. His other hand grips her hair as she increases her pace until his body stiffens and he holds her still and he thrusts softly, riding out the burst of orgasm.

After they adjust their clothes, Emma finds herself stretched along the bed next to him, lying face to face, legs tangling together. She drifts to sleep in this position, murmuring a low, “I should go home.”

He presses a gentle kiss to her forehead and whispers back, “Stay.”

So she does, waking the next morning in the same position, their clothes mussed and hair wrecked. 


	44. fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one is also smuttier than most so if you don't like the more graphic stuff, feel free to skip and i won't be offended.

She wakes up, flushed, legs twisted in her sheets, and her heart racing. She's been having dreams all week, the kind of delicious, sweaty, naked dreams that she hasn't had in  _ages._

She dreams about his lips, his full, wide lips, traveling her body with care, tracing her skin carefully - and then less-than-carefully with nips and pulls and tugs. She dreams about his hand upon her skin, gliding and smooth, no crook or crevice untouched by him.

(She sometimes dreams about the hook, the cold, gleaming metal, cool against her skin, the sharp edge hitting her skin just so.)

Her new apartment is quiet - almost eerily so with her kid's room empty for the night - and she stretches her limbs with a gentle groan. Killian usually spends the night but tonight he begged off for one reason or another, though she suspects his new best friend - and petty thief - has kept him out late for drunken carousing. 

She gave him a key and told him to come home whenever, and she means it. She knows where his heart is (same place as hers) and she wants him to feel like he  _belongs_. 

But at the moment, she's flustered and jittery with leftover desire, so she smooths her hair, pushing it back from her eyes, before gliding her own hands over her body, pretending that they are his, that she is still deep in her fever dreams. 

She hasn't done this in forever, taken actual time to relearn her body. For too long there was disaster after tragedy after villains. But tonight, the moon is bright and she's alone, and  _wanting._

She thumbs her nipples, which are already peaked, as one hand drifts lower. She likes the light feel of her hand, tracing the skin around her bellybutton before slipping down her pants. Her hands find herself, then, slick and wet and warm. Her dreams having done their work on her. 

It doesn't take long, she knows instinctively each pressure point to a quick release, but she still revels in the small moments. Slipping fingers inside herself, the quick flick of her clit, her other hand shifting as they trace her breasts, until they grip the sheets. 

She comes with a quick gasp and she remains, staring at her ceiling, chest exhaling with verve, as she tries to calm the buzzing of her skin. 

It's then that she hears the soft click of her bedroom door and she wonders just when was it Killian returned. She shifts up, propped up on her elbows as she eyes him.  _His_  eyes are bright with drink, but as he drinks in her position on the bed, legs tangled in sheets and tank top eschew, she knows that  _he knows_  exactly what she's been up to. 

"Started without me, eh love?" He asks with that leer of his, the one that she should roll her eyes at, but that he pulls off with no trouble. The one that she remembers from their first date as he leaned in his chair and teased her over  _libations_. 

She smiles at him and pats the bed as she offers for him to join her. It doesn't take him long to shed his clothes and she can see, in the tense hold of his body and the speed of his movements, that he feels it too. This constant need for each other. The constant desire to touch, to taste, always.

He shifts his body until he's lying over her, the soft cotton of his boxers rubbing against the soft cotton of her shorts, as he slides his hand across her stomach and lifts her shirt. His mouth is at her neck, pressing soft kisses to her skin, making a pattern along the curves of her skin until he reaches her breasts. His lips tug at her nipples then, pulling the already hard peaks until her back bows up, off the bed.

_Killian._

She gasps his name as his lips pull hard, then even harder, latent desire in her belly growing, growing, growing, until her hands grip his ass and he pulls his hips to hers.

He growls in return as he presses into her, circling his hips until she slips her hands under his boxes and pushes them down. He pulls back o give her room to shift her shorts off, as well, and she takes the opening the roll their bodies over.

His eyes are dark and his hand cups her cheek as she reaches down to find him.

"Fast or slow?" She asks as she strokes him one, twice, three times until his hips rise to meet her.

"Fast," he groans as she positions herself over him.

As she slides down, his hand shifts to her hip, but instead she grabs his hand with hers and laces their fingers before positioning his hand above their heads, her other hand gripping the headboard.

Her breasts brush against the soft hair at his chest as they move, her hips circling, his lifting, and she leans her head into the crook of his neck, her teeth nipping at his skin.

It never fails to make him thrust harder - and she loves that she's learned his body, his ticks, so well. She knows just the position to hit with her hips, the circle and thrust that she knows will make him moan and gasp her name.

She's been holding back just enough, so he can catch up to her already thrumming nerves, leftover from her first orgasm. But she can feel it building so she shifts just enough and hits the spot. The one that makes his hands grip hers harder and his head to roll back. 

She feels full - of love, of lust - her body working his, his body working hers. And when she comes again, this time with him inside her, she feels like her heart will burst as the flush spreads over her body. 


	45. everybody's been sad (everybody's been tragic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post-4.04 fic, minor speculation based on episode description for 4.05
> 
> she's not so distracted that she can't see something is wrong. he feels like he should leave, but he can't bring himself to.
> 
> (title from patty griffin's 'you never get what you want')

1.

Emma’s never quite felt this flustered before. Even though she had told him in the diner, "I don't pillage and plunder on the first date," she heard the way his voice dropped an octave and his eyes flickered with that extra  _something._ The something that said he hopes she'll change her mind. (And, lord knows, he tried. The eyebrow arches at dinner and his use of the word  _libations_  comes to mind.)

In the moment, she  _wants_  to change her mind. Her forehead rests against his as she takes a moment before pulling away from him. Her chest rising and falling with heavy breaths and her skin still buzzing from the feel of his body so close to hers, his hands on her back, cupping her neck, making her  _need._

In the end, she knows that she should pull away. Because she meant what she said earlier, though maybe not in the way that he imagined. She's spent the night with men she'd just met before. She's slept with them on first dates and not-even-first dates. She's even had hasty couplings against walls outside of bars, and she’s crept out of apartments in the middle of the night leaving no note, no trace she was ever there.

( _One night is as far as I ever go,_  she told Mary Margaret long ago. Back before Mary Margaret was  _mom_  and back before there was Killian. Back when all there was were memories she kept buried and secret desires for more.)

_This_  means more, this moment here with Killian, sliding her arms out of his jacket and her slanted glance as she says goodnight. He'd told her, just like her father told her that she needed to seek out the quiet moments, allow herself the good moments. She  _has_  tonight, so much that she's forgotten about the Snow Queen whose voice haunts her with memories buried, she’s forgotten about her fears that Regina will backslide and slip right out of Henry’s life. And she’s forgotten about Elsa, about the ice queen in sparkling blue, and her search for a beloved sister. All this because of the man beside her, the one who is worth so much more than one night-goodbye-and-thanks. So she told him that she didn’t pillage and plunder on the first date and she meant it.

(But,  _god_ , does she want to.

She really needs to get her own place.)

As she closes the door and takes a moment to breathe, her skin is still tingling and jumpy. So much that when she hears her parent's voices, she startles so blatantly that her flush deepens. Hoping that her parents don't realize just how  _affected_  she is, she slinks away, upstairs to her bed. 

When she wakes up in the middle of the night, flushed and heart pounding, the loft is quiet and dark, the many occupants having crashed for the night. (Elsa kept trying to insist that she could stay at the same inn as Killian, but David and Mary Margaret wouldn't hear of it.) The couch may be comfortable enough (though probably not for a fairytale queen) but it certainly made for cramped quarters.

( _You want to come in and have coffee with my parents, a newborn, and a human ice maker?_

_I suppose we’ll just have to wait until next time._ )

Emma lies still in her bed, listening to the night sounds surrounding her, listening for the rustling of clothes or the soft whispers of others just as sleepless as she is. Hearing nothing, she slides out of her bed as quietly as possible, and wraps her blanket around her shoulders. There’s no chair in her room, so she stands by the window and stares into the darkness. The sky is overcast, no stars to populate her vision, and she enjoys the still quiet of it all.

It’s then that it hits her, the look in his eyes as he said goodnight.

(He’d been right there with her as their lips met, his mouth insistent upon hers, his tongue tracing her lips, mingling with hers. He’d been right there with her, one hand gripping his shirt, the other at the nape of his neck. His had been twisting in the jacket that she commandeered from him and moving up-up-up until…

…nothing.)

 

2.

When he finds her in sheriff’s station, her eyes still shiny and fresh with desire for  _him_  (and gods, he doesn’t deserve it, he knows that now) he wants to run away. He doesn’t because he knows her, he knows his Swan, and he knows that if he leaves her now, he’ll never have her at all. (And gods, he still wants her, deserving or not.)

It’s so hard to pretend, though, to pretend that he’s some hero (he isn’t, never was) while the evidence that he’s not stares him in the eyes from the other end of a cell.

( _Tell anyone about this and you’re a dead man._ )

Regardless what the petty thief did, Killian knows that it’s  _him_  that should be in that cell, not some sad-eyed miscreant who broke into a library for a book. (A book that in the light of day would be his free of charge, the bloody fool.) Part of him had hoped, for a brief moment that the thief would rat him out. He’d never kill the man for speaking, not really, though he supposes the other one doesn’t really know that. And then it would be there – in the open – and he could be rid of this rolling in his belly, the ache that grows every time Emma catches his eyes and brushes him with her hands, so casually, like she’s been touching him forever.

_(Dark One lies._

_Dark One tricks.)_

It doesn't happen immediately after he gets his hook back. No, this time it takes days to sink in. Ironically enough, it's not the Dark One's voice that really solidifies things. Instead it's the voice of Prince Charming, of Emma's father, the man from whom he received begrudging support in his efforts to court Emma.

It's his voice from Neverland, before they saved (and lost) Neal, before they saved Henry, before he felt the clap of David's hand against his shoulder in support and before David toasted his name over a flask of rum.

( _She’s never going to like you._

_How could she? You’re nothing but a pirate._ )

But he feels the truth in those words now. In a way he didn't feel it before, not back when he was high on possibility, high on the idea that if he could just follow his gut, he would be proven true in her eyes. It feels true now, in his gut, the idea that he's rotten to his core and he should never have pretended otherwise.

It’s fitting, then, that the self-doubt that begins to plague him takes root in her father’s voice. It doesn’t matter the number of times he’s clapped a hand to Killian’s shoulder. He knows that good old Dave would most likely prefer that his daughter  _not_  begin dating a pirate. Not that it had stopped him – or  _her_  for that matter – since it’s also true what he told Dave outside the ice wall.

( _Whatever we become it’s up to her as much as me._ )

But niggling self-doubt has no statute of limitations. Shame over past misdeeds never really dies.  _Lack_  of shame over past misdeeds is as haunting as the rest of them.

 (He doesn’t deserve it.

He doesn’t deserve her.

He even thinks about leaving, but he can’t seem to make himself do that either.)

3.

The price of silence is exacted from him later, as he knew that it would. Emma and Elsa have gone, finding some evidence and a trail. David followed suit not much later, clapping Killian on the back and saying, “A date. Mary Margaret has agreed to a date.”

Killian tries to smile but his mouth feels heavy as they all leave him at the station with the thief – Will Scarlet, he claims, former Merry Man and assumed resident of Wonderland. Killian shudders at the thought of that infernal land, and of Cora, who is a constant reminder that he is a villain and it was foolish to ever pretend otherwise.

( _Well aren’t you mum of the year._ )

“Well,” he drawls as he inches closer to the cell, the hard edge of his voice returning, the one that he’s been hiding all day. “What’s your price, Scarlet?”

“My price?” The other man asks, eyes wide, and Killian wonders if he ever looks happy or if the sad eyes are a constant in the man’s life.

“Don’t play the fool, Scarlet. Thief or not, ignorance is unbecoming.”

“Well it’s a good thing I’m not trying to become anything, now isn’t it?”

There’s a brief pause, during which, the Killian watches as the other man weighs his options. He doesn’t give much away, but Killian is trained to wait and watch.

( _Many a battle can be won, brother, by simply knowing a man’s moves before he makes them. Watch for the signs, don’t be too eager.)_

Though, in the end, he loses this battle and he sits, empty handed and slumped against the wall in the jail cell, the wide door swinging open. The creaking of the old hinges punctuates the growing dread he feels. 

 

4.

Emma finds him in the jail cell in the morning, hunched over and sleeping. The door is closed, locked tight against his escape, it seems. She knew that Will was gone – she’d received the frantic call from David last night – and just as she’d reminded herself two nights ago, she told David to relax because there’s no way he can leave town. Storybrooke may be bigger than it appears at first glance, but they’re all trapped by a giant ice wall.

Of course, David said nothing about Killian and jail cells so she has to wonder how much he knows about this development (obviously very little). She also wonders exactly how much she’s missed in her post-date glow (clearly a lot). The pieces are flying together, though, given the cryptic words of the Snow Queen the previous night and the mysterious appearance and disappearance of a certain hand.

It’s a punch to the gut, this realization that she’s missed something, something very important. That she thought his constant staring at the hand was just him getting used to it being there again. The fact that his explanation ( _it appears the Dark One’s magic wasn’t all I’d hoped it would be)_  covered something  _more_  makes her heart skip a beat.

She unlocks the cell door and sits at the edge of the cot as Killian shifts in sleep but does not wake up. She whispers his name, “Killian.” And when he doesn’t answers she says, louder, “Hook.”

His body startles, shaking out of sleep as he sits up rapidly. His hair is sticking up in all directions and his eyes are rimmed bright red. He’s confused when he notices her after a moment of rubbing his eyes and stretching his legs.

“Emma?” He asks, scratching behind his ear in the way that Emma knows he does when he’s uncomfortable with  _something_.

“What are you doing in here?”

His shoulders slump and she reaches out to touch him, just a gentle press to his shoulder, but he slides his body away from her. It shouldn’t hurt her as much as it does. She knows – just as she had kept him at an arm’s length for days after their return from the Enchanted Forest for reasons all her own – that this has nothing to do with her.

(And yet she also feels like it has  _everything_  to do with her.)

“Gold?” She asks him, and his head snaps to hers, making eye contact with her for the first time since she walked into the cell.

“Gold,” he sighs.

“What happened?”

He shakes his head, the movement barely perceptible, but she notices it anyway. “Killian,” she presses gently, her hand reaching out to brace that holds his hook. She thumbs the leather of his new jacket as she strengthens her grip on him.

(He might not want to be touched, but he  _needs_  it, and she’s going to ensure that he knows he  _deserves_  it.)

“Be patient,” he says, mirroring her words of earlier.

“I’ve all the time in the world,” she repeats his words back, but the smile stretching her lips feels hollow.

( _Oh, Killian._

_Oh, Gold._

She really wants to punch him in the face, like she threatened to so long ago.)


	46. untitled - musings on the word 'love'

1.

The first time it happens, Emma doesn't expect the words to tumble out of her mouth unbidden. She's thought them (of  _course_  she has), but never one dared say them so directly, so irrevocably. So she says it in ways that she hopes he understands.

( _I can't lose you, too._ ) _  
_

She's thought about saying them late at night, sleep elusive, as her ears attune to the quiet creaks and the natural sounds of her new apartment settling into the night. She thinks about him lying next to her, listening to the same sounds, his arm pressing until her body curls into his and his hot breath mingles with hers. 

( _I love you_ , she says as they are flying through the streets, feet barely touching ground, as they chase after yet another fairytale creature come to haunt her town.)

2.

She didn't want to say it first this time, even though she knows that he loves her. She's only ever said it first, the only two times she's ever used the words. 

With Neal she always wondered, after, if he said it back because he really  _felt_  it or because he thought he should. Back when she was in prison and she stared at grey walls and the grey sky and she felt like his patsy. 

(And when she knows the truth, that  _he_  thought he needed to leave. That  _he_ felt he had no choice, that he loved her anyway, she wonders if that's not worse somehow.)

3. 

With Henry the word love means a hospital bed and tubes. It means a pale-faced kid and the angry beeping of machines. She's said it since then - 

( _I love you kid._

_I know, mom._ )

But the first time, expecting nothing in return, hoping that he would hear her off in the void of the in-between, it felt like saying goodbye.

4.

She's known that Killian loves her for what feels like forever. But she can trace it back to one moment, so short, with words arranged in different ways, but they all mean the same thing.

( _There's not a day will go by I won't think of you._ )

She knows he feels it but he never says the words. He touches her like he loves her, like he worships her, and (sometimes) with the desperation of a man whose life has only seen small glimpses of love.  _  
_

It's like he's afraid of the word, except she knows he's not. 

(How are you,  _love?_

What's the problem,  _love?_

Well,  _love_ , you don't have to worry about me.)

5.

After she says it, he stops in his tracks as his hook reaches for her arm. He pulls her close to him and says, "Say it again, love."

Her face is flushed red, sweating from their fast-paced pursuit, and her chest is heaving at the sudden break. 

"Why?" She asks, her eyes searching his face. 

He's an open book to her these days, secrets of the past tumbling free as they always do, and though his eyes are bright from their chase, they're also full of some kind of undefinable wonder.

"Say it again," he whispers. 

"I love you," she whispers.

When he smiles, the world stops.

("Forgive me, my love," he pleads, later, after he's said the words back to her ten-fold. 

And as he tells her that the last time he heard the words, her voice was silenced only seconds later, she places her hand on his chest and presses her lips to the tuft of hair that covers his heart.)

 


	47. untitled drabble - heaviness and light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post-4.05 drabble (Emma)

A hand with heavy rings, making their presence known with cool metal that contrasts with the warmth of his skin. A hand that is rough and weathered from a day on the ocean, from a life on the oceans of this world and other realms. A hand that reaches for hers, that lightens her heavy heart as she watches the bright, open, sunny girl on screen that doesn’t know yet how quickly dreams can come crashing down.

It’s moments like these, his arm around her shoulder, fingers gently stroking her hers, nerves tingling along her skin, under her skin, straight to her heart. It’s moments like these that make the other moments bearable.

The moment when their eyes meet after he finds the photo of her and Neal aches in her gut, a deep gnawing worry that her past is too much - that their shared past is too much. The moment he entered the station, her expression so still, he read the weariness anyway. He read it and wanted to help. He read it and asked to help, not knowing what her answer would be.

(You’re something of an open book.

You and I, we understand each other.)

She holds her blanket to her heart for a moment, dipping her face to feel its softness for just a brief moment, and she can do that in front of him now. She can close her eyes and rest her head on his shoulder. She doesn’t have to be so hard, so tough, so wary, because he’s there to soften her fall.


	48. untitled - worthiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post-4.05 drabble (Killian)

He feels like he shouldn’t touch her, not with all of the secrets weighing him down, not with the knowledge that, one day, she might see every touch as a lie. He cannot fathom a future where she thinks of this moment, his fingers lacing with hers, with disgust. He worries, though, that she will, that her eyes will harden again, that all she will see is another man who wasn’t what she thought he was.

He cannot stop himself from touching her, though. It’s as if she is addicting, with her smooth skin and her silky hair, his hand moving to touch before his brain can hold himself back. How could she think this moment is a lie, he wonders, as his hips are cradled between her thighs, the friction of denim on denim, of cradled heat, driving him further and further until his hand slides along her waist, toying with the hem of her sweater. 

It’s as unfathomable as the most outlandish tale he’s ever told to swindle ar barkeep out of a barrel of rum, the idea that she could one day think of this moment and shudder in disgust. Not with the slow, maddening unveiling of her golden skin that flushes red when his thumb traces along her torso, not with the skittering of his heart as she loops her fingers into the waist of his pants and tugs his body closer to hers, her legs wrapping around his hips. 

He hasn’t even touched his lips to hers yet and he’s on fire for more, his hips mindlessly thrusting into hers, her quiet gasps filling the quiet air of the station. His second to last thought before his lips touch hers is that he doesn’t deserve her, open and flushed, warm and  _real._ His last thought before her lips reach up to meet his is that he’ll take what he pleases and damn the consequences. (He’s nothing but a pirate after all.)


	49. untitled: emma feels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post-4.07, emma runs away and spends the night in her car.

She wakes up sweating, the morning sun warming her through the windshield of the bug, even though last night she felt a chill in the air. (And not the chill from Snow Queens and villains, but the shifting of the seasons, through autumn, closing in on winter.) Her limbs are sore and her knees creak as she unfolds her body from the backseat. It’s much more difficult to sleep in a car, she’s realized, once one is no longer sixteen and full of youth and desperation.

She’s tired though, and she has been tired for a while. (No time off for the savior. No time off to enjoy her quiet moments. She tried and it worked, it worked so well that she put herself to bed, nerves buzzing, body wanting, and then she woke up and everything around her got worse.) She knows that if she turned on her phone her entire voice mail will be filled with messages - of concern, of apology, of  _love._ Hopefully of love, but right now she’s not sure, which is why she thumbs the power button of her phone before sliding it back into her pocket, unused. 

.

The view was much prettier at night, the bright lights of her small town illuminating her line of sight, the darkness hiding everything else. This morning, well, this morning she can see every inch of the town from her perch.  _Her_  town, though it doesn’t feel much like hers today. 

There’s a rational part of her brain - stuck somewhere in the deep recesses right now, it seems - that understands the fears, the mistrust of uncontrolled power. They’ve all see what destruction magic can bring. But they’ve all felt its healing powers, too. Except for Killian. (Somehow he’s the only one who has experienced the bad and yet always presses her to see the beauty of her magic.) And he’s the one that reached for her, his hand almost catching hers. She can feel a ghost of that almost-touch, that swoosh of air at her arm.

.

Just days before it was hands in hair and hot lips pressed against hers. It was her heart beating against his chest as his hands clutched at the jacket she wore. His jacket, that smelled of new leather, that he draped over her shoulders on their walk home. It was fever dreams of twining limbs and waking flushed among her sheets as she quietly gave herself release, whispering his name into pillow. 

.

She doesn’t mean to stay away for long, she just needs a moment to allow her hands to cool - for the white fire rushing through her veins to dissipate back into its hidden compartment within. She just needs time to collect herself, to know that she won’t hurt anybody else. But she’s not sure that she can and she’s not sure where to go until she  _feels_  it.

All she wants is her booth at Granny’s and her a steaming mug in front of her. She wants Killian’s feet brushing against hers - underneath the table, away from the prying eyes of town. She wants Henry’s laugh as Killian cheats at dice over breakfast. 

(She wants to hold her baby brother, to cradle him in her arms, to inhale his precious baby scent, her lips at his forehead. She wants the things she never did but remembers, remembers the way she would sing Henry to sleep, a little off key, until his steady breathing put her to sleep.)


	50. the constant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @driftiing-ona-memory requested fic based on the following lyrics:
> 
> I think I might’ve inhaled you/I can feel you behind my eyes/You’ve gotten into my bloodstream/I can feel you flowing in me
> 
> and for something angsty, but super feelsy/fluffy too

This first night that she spends in his bed everything happens in a wild rush, clothes strewn across the room, bodies flushed with adrenaline and slick with sweat from their earlier fight with the Snow Queen as they collide again and again – hands pressing on skin and Emma’s leg wrapped around his waist. It’s not what he expected, with soft candlelight and careful exploration; there are no declarations of love, or admiration, just the beating of her heart against his skin and her quiet gasps with every thrust of his hips pressing her deeper into the mattress.

.

It’s a constant state, this wanting her. His heart beats her name, breathing in and out –  _Emma,_ Emma. Its sometimes as if he can feel her even when she is not around, along every inch of his body. His skin heats at just the thought of her touch – a brush of her hand against his, the way she idly twirls his rings round his fingers sometimes without even realizing what she’s doing, the way that she slides her arm around his waist and aligns her body against his, face pressed to his back.

.

He told Ariel that  _love_ meant nothing to him, that it was a constant source of misery. He told Emma that he would think of her everyday. He told Blackbeard that he hadn’t gone soft and pushed him off the plank into the deep blue. He holds these truths in his heart, in the compartment for that tragic year. He despairs of seeing her again in his lifetime, but he can never forget the way her eyes met his and she said,  _Good._

When he was alone on the Jolly, racing towards the edge of the ocean, to the safe waters, hand clutching the crumpled paper with the note – get Emma, it said, a new curse is coming, it said, and so he ignored the confused faces of his crew as he dropped them at the first port of call, speeding away on the enchanted wood. Smee made a dark silhouette against the harbor as he remained, long after the crew left, watching Killian sail away.

As he held the magic bean in his hand, its weight heavier than it ought to be, rubbing his thumb across the smooth surface, he feels Emma’s presence next to him. He stands at the edge of a forest, far from the harbor where he abandoned his home. He didn’t think of her bobbing in the grey-blue water, he didn’t think of her sailing under a new flag. Instead he thought of her flying through the air, black sail and lost boys surrounding her helm, Henry asleep in his quarters and Emma cradled between her parents on deck.

.

_Emma, Emma –_ his heart bursting through his chest as the portal opened, the swirling green beckoning, along with the rapid tattoo of her name. 

_Emma, Emma –_ his heart bursting through his chest as he catches a glimpse of her hair as her door opens.

_Emma, Emma –_ his heart fading into nothing as his lungs fill with water.

.

The second time she spends the night in his bed, he makes her wait – and wait and wait – while he worships her. He whispers  _soon_  as her knees bend and her hips lift off the mattress, his lips hovering over her. He whispers  _soon_  as her nipples peak as his fingers graze along her body. He wants her to feel him  _everywhere_ , the same as it has been for him. She gasps his name as his fingers slide into her, back bowing, head thrown back. She glares in disappointment when he does not allow her to return the favor, but she smiles in contentment when he slides into her, her hands guiding him as sits, back against the headboard.

.

Her body curls around his, front to back, arm strewn across his middle, and when he finally falls asleep his heart continues to beat her name. 


	51. untitled: smut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: more graphic than the other stuff, so be warned if that's not your thing.

It's their first night alone together in her new apartment and she's already so keyed up that when he arrives she pushes him back against the front door and her hands are on the buckle of his belt before he can say, "Hello, love."

She's been thinking about his voice all day, sending shivers along her body - the way he lowered his pitch on the phone last night, voice muffled, dirty thoughts to her as her hands drifted down and pressed two fingers between her legs and told him to keep going.

.

_Have I ever told you, love, just how sweet you taste?_ He asked, while she pressed at her clit with the heel of her hand, fingers working, sliding between slick folds, her other hand with an unsteady grip on her phone. 

_God, you get so wet for me,_ he said as she raised her hips to meet her hand, back bowing off her bed, heart racing.

_Are you wet for me right now?_ He asked and she gasped -  _yes_ \- into her phone. 

.

She pulls at his leather pants, sliding them down his legs, and then slowly runs her hands back up, until she reaches the elastic waist of his boxer-briefs. She leans in and nips at the skin above with her teeth and she hears his hissing breath in reply.

His hand grips the back of her neck, twining her hair around his fingers as her hands send the cotton briefs down to join his pants. She hums her approval at how hard he is for her already, reaching for him, gliding one hand along his smooth skin as he presses his hips into her hand in return. 

She hears the soft bang of his head hitting the door as he leans back, eyes closed, and emits a half-sigh, half-groan as her lips wrap around him. He tightens his grip in her hair which sends a spark through her body - a zing straight between her legs that she ignores for now. He'll get to her later, he's nothing if not equitable in pleasure, and tonight's about him, she's decided.

She  releases him with a quiet pop as she continues to work him with her hand, to catch her breath, to torture him - because she likes the way he is when he's needy, the way he asks for more with glinting eyes and quiet groans.

"More _,"_  he says, looking down at her, and she smiles against his skin before taking him into her mouth.

She hollows her cheeks and increases suction until his his are bucking mindlessly, fucking into her mouth with abandon, and his rings are pulling at her hair.  

.

Once he's spent, he takes mere seconds to recover before his eyes glint dangerously and he orders her to her room. She's exhilarated and her body is aching with need. 

"Get on the bed, darling," he says darkly, making her heart race even more, "And I want you to show me  _exactly_  what you were up to last night."


	52. cs morning snuggles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fluff request after the angst-fest that was 4x08

It’s still dark outside when her alarm goes off. This is her least favorite part of winter, the darkness in the morning (and the darkness so early in the evenings). She’s been going through all the old city records that they dug up while they were searching for the snow queen because she wants to be prepared next time a villain comes to town. (She  _needs_  to be prepared next time.)

It’s dark outside and she knows that the hardwood floor of her new apartment will be cold against her bare feet. (She shivers just thinking about it.) On the other hand, her bed is warm, the fluffy down comforter holding in heat, enhancing the warmth radiating from Killian’s body next to hers. He mumbles incoherently as she reaches to her nightstand to hit snooze on her phone, his hand reaching for her side as she leans, her skin pulling tight. His hand is warm against her and it brands her skin, heat sparking across her body, even as the cool air of the room strikes her arm.

_Just a few more minutes_ , she thinks to herself as she settles back into his chest, his arm wrapping around her waist, thumb tracing the sliver of exposed skin over her flannel pants. She sighs into his body as his body molds to hers, his face sliding to the curve of her neck, his nose nuzzling at her through her tangled hair. Her heart races at the light touches, as he murmurs into her ear, “Stay with me this morning, love.”

Her lips part and she lets out a small moan as his hand begins to trace her skin more insistently, fingertips pressing and sliding, dipping lower, reaching higher until her hips press back against him restlessly and her skin is flushed against his hand. He slides her hair away from her skin and his lips glide along her skin as his hand makes quick work of her - deep breaths and quiet gasps and one long moan of  _Killian._

(Later - phone crashing off the nightstand as she kills the alarm for good - she flips their bodies until he’s on his back, his eyes never leaving hers as she takes him in her hands and guides him into her body. Her hand clasps his, fingers entwined above their heads as their hearts race together.)


	53. hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fluff prompt: Emma putting Killian's heart back in then doing that spell so that it be taken anymore/a fiercely protective Emma snuggling with Killian in bed, taking care of him & marveling over how much she loves him after Gold has been exposed and Killian’s heart is returned to his chest; reassuring Killy he’s safe & worthy of her love.

She never expected an enchanted heart to be so warm. She’s seen this done before, she remembers the pit in her stomach as Regina cradled Henry’s heart in her hands and, placing it above his chest, above that cavity where it resides, pressed it into his body. (She remembers feeling helpless and scared, the relieved and joyous. She remembers every millisecond before Henry opened his eyes, awake and alive, safe.)

Now it’s her turn, and her hands are steady, her insides calm. She thought she’d be a shaking mess when they found his heart in Gold’s vault, along with the real dagger. She assumed that her fears for Killian would consume everything - every thought, every motion, turn every hope she ever had for her future into dust. But she’s calm now, she’s in control now, and as she holds his heart in the palms of her hands, cradling it so gently, she can feel the warmth of it radiating through her every pore. She feels it - all the love that he has for her, she’s holding it’s center and she can actually  _feel_  his love rushing through her. 

It calms her, steadies her, and (surprisingly) no longer frightens her with it’s intensity. He’s never used the word with her before, not in the full-on  _I love you_  sense. He calls her love (but let’s face it, he calls most women love at some point.) Now, though, as she holds his heart, she can feel the memories that he holds. She can feel the moment his lips were cursed, when he swore on her name, the name of his love. 

(He loves her. He _loves_  her. 

She’s always known this was true but now she  _feels_  it, she can tell the shape of it, she can see what he holds in his heart.)

.

The spell is a quick fiery sensation in his chest, a burning of skin, a  _branding_  of his heart. The words she whispers as her hands cover his chest and it glows, bright and golden, mark his heart as hers in a way that goes beyond the truths that he already knew. It goes beyond everything, as his heart now rests solidly in his chest. It will never again be ripped from him because of  _her._

(The name  _Emma_ might as well be tattooed on the organ for all that he belongs to her completely.)

But if he belongs to her, then she belongs right back because she hasn’t stopped touching him since the she completed the spell. She’s not just touching him with her gentle hands (the way the slide across his chest and unbutton his shirt. There’s a heat that sparks along his skin as she continues, and not the same one that always does, the one that starts in his heart and moves along his veins, under his skin, spreading everywhere at once. It’s outside his body and it’s coming from her. 

Her eyes are closed as she leans into him, presses her lips against his heart as her hands push his shirt from his shoulders. It’s her magic, he realizes as the sparks continue to glow against his skin - not burning, not like the hand print he found in Gold’s shop - just glowing, warming. He can hear her voice in his head. He can hear her saying  _I love you_  with every touch, with every glide of lips and hands. 

When she finally opens her eyes to meet his, they’re gleaming, golden rings around the bright green, and he’s not frightened because she’s in control and she’s  _showing_  him every piece of her. She takes his hand and she slides it under her shirt, pressing it to  _her_ heart. 

He feels a quick blast of heat and then he  _feels_ it. He feels her memories, the things she’s never said aloud that he’s always known were true. His eyes lock on hers and he whispers, “you don’t have to do this.” _  
_

She answers him with a kiss, her lips gliding over his, clinging together as their breath mingles for seconds, for minutes. “I did,” she finally answers with a breathy moan, “It was only fair after seeing into yours.”

He smiles against her lips and captures them with his, again and again, until they tumble, limbs entwined, into each other. 


	54. sugar and spice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fluff prompt: hot cocoa with cinnamon

He prefers his coffee to Emma’s cocoa with cinnamon - he likes his brew strong and dark, bitter and sometimes splashed with a bit of rum in the evenings. He’s never been one for desserts before, his desire for confections never satisfied as a child, back when he was an unruly scavenger. Then he was a naval lieutenant so focused on being  _good_  and following  _rules_  lest he lose everything again, that he lost his taste for them completely.

.

(And then it was rum, always rum. Pouring out of his flask and down his throat, masking any needs with cards and dice and more than enough rum.)

.

He finds, though, that he loves the taste of cocoa after Emma takes a sip of the warm beverage, her mouth filled with sugar and spice. His lips crave the sweetness of hers, and he can never resist the pull. Sometimes he leans over their table at Granny’s, pushing her mug aside, and he cups the back of her head as his tongue tangles with hers and he tastes,  _savors_  the sweetness. 

Sometimes they’re at her apartment and the whipped cream sprays onto her face, catching on her nose, her cheeks, the corners of her mouth. He loves to swat her arms away as he presses his lips to each spot, his tongue flicking out until she’s clean, and then he captures her mouth. 

.

(Sometimes she pulls on the charms of his necklace and drags his body closer to hers and forgets about her cocoa as they tumble to the couch and fall together. She likes to drink it later as she warms it in her microwave, leaning against the counter with a satisfied smile on her lips, as the soft cotton of his shirt skims her thighs.)


	55. post-4.11 smut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> response to a prompt for some post-midseason finale smut

He whirls her around so fast that she expects to hit the wall with a delicious slam. But instead, there’s a hand cupped around the back of her neck and right before his hips press her into the wall, everything slows and she lands gently, his hips dipping into hers with care. It’s almost…sweet…the way his hand glides along her hair, traveling, traveling, until it reaches her waist. It’s almost…loving…the way her hand lingers on his chest, feeling the beating of his heart through her fingertips. 

That immediate burst of passion, the way his gaze dipped to her lips before he pounced (and really, there’s no other word for it, he  _pounced on her),_ that look is gone now. It’s a shame because she liked that look, the one that says,  _I’m going to devour you,_ and makes her heart race with the reply,  _not it I devour you first._ That look is replaced with something infinitely more tender as he murmurs, “I told you Swan, I’m a survivor.” 

In the moment, she kind of hates that she’s reminded of that moment - the tearful, “I can’t lose you, too,” of before. She hates that she feels so vulnerable that she  _needs_  so much. She’d rather focus on the way her hips press into his until her belly itches for more. This, at least,  _this_  kind of need she can control. She can savor. She can revel in the delight of his touch, sparking across her nerves. 

She can take back control. 

The buzzing of her skin intensifies as she pushes him back and she catches his eyes. She licks her lips and watches as he flicks his glance downwards for a brief moment. He almost gets that gaze back, the one that started this all, as he pulls at his bottom lip with his teeth, before meeting her eyes one again. She smiles and he smiles and she feels another pull in her belly. But she wants him just as desperate as she is, desperate to erase the pain, the fear, the confusion. 

(The vulnerability.)

"One hour," she says, "Give me one hour."

.

The side-trip with Regina and Henry takes a little longer than planned, and she still makes time for a little side-trip to the apartment. She wants to pick up a few things and check in with her parents, but it’s clear to her (and them) that she won’t be home again tonight. As if anything could get more awkward, her mother finds her with her lingerie drawer open, fingering the scraps of satin and lace, until she reaches the exact one she had in mind. 

And then she’s back at Granny’s and taking the steps too quickly but she’s late and she knows that he’ll worry because it’s Storybrooke and she’s the savior and  _it’s never over._  So she’s less than surprise when the door opens before she can knock and his hook pulls her in the room before she can say anything. 

Then  _there_  it is, that delicious slam she had been looking for as he closes the door with her back and his hips dig into her, until the friction is too much. She grips his hips with her hands and she pulls him away, not fully, just enough so that she doesn’t explode. He tastes like rum, his tongue tracing her lips, rubbing against hers, while his hand makes it’s way down the front of her jacket, zipper sliding until he can push it off her shoulders. 

He’s already half-undressed and it’s so easy for her to slide her hands down, under the cotton briefs, and palm the tight muscles of his ass. He groans into her mouth at this and she digs her nails into his skin, liking the way it feels as he jerks against her, surprised, loving to be the cause of his racing heart. She pushes him back, away from the door and she begins to unbutton her shirt as he steps - back, back, back until he falls against the bed, mattress sagging under his weight. 

His hook slides under the belt loops of her jeans and with a little tug, she falls against him, her shirt open but not off, her pants unbuttoned. She feels greedy as she looks at him below her, eyes dark, hair sticking up from her fingers running through them. She wants to rip his shirt off, buttons flying, she wants to push him to his back and ride him until he can’t move. She tells him so, and his eyes flash as she replies, “I’m not stopping you, love.”

And that’s enough for the dam to really break, as her hands make quick work of his clothes, her promise fulfilled as buttons fly through the air. His teeth pull at her lips, his tongue sliding obscenely, until their mouths fuse together. His hand grips her hair tightly, winding it around until he can control the direction of her head, tilting this way and that as he returns the favor and shreds her shirt with his hook. 

The cool metal against her skin makes her writhe in shock, her hips against his, the seam of her jeans on her clit, his erection underneath. She thinks she might want even more on that, the slide of the tip along her stomach as she continues to undulate, the press to the point of pain, but never slipping too far. Her breath hitches and he must think that it’s in fear because he releases her hair and soon it’s his hand against her skin and his hook digging into the mattress, his body looking for leverage as he thrusts against her. 

"Too many clothes," he groans as he thumbs a nipple through the lace, and follows with his mouth, the warmth and wet - and the fabric - pulling at her skin. 

She agrees and there’s more bodies flipping and clothes being shed until they’re kneeling on the bed, facing one another, completely bare. His hand traces down her front and slips between her legs, finding her wet and swollen. He slides slowly until her hands gain balance on his shoulders and then faster and faster as the heel of his hand grinds against her, until she feels that burst of pleasure. 

She pushes him to his back, condom in hand, rolling it along his hard length, until she slides her body down. This time when his hand shakes it’s because she’s pushed it above his head and grips her hand around his wrist as she moves, her hips circling as he thrusts upwards so hard her breasts bounce with each movement. She leans her body down and he captures a nipple with his lips, pulling as she moves, his hook still digging into the mattress. 

When she comes again, muscles fluttering around him, he quickly followers her and she leans her face into the curve of his neck and breathes him in. 

.

"You were late," he whispers into her ear as his lips travel along her skin, tracing a path from cheek to ear to neck, and then back to her lips. 

"I’m sorry," she says against his lips trying to explain, clinging together in between words, until there are no more left to say. 


	56. appreciation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr request: Can you write smut where emma takes her time to appreciate killian?

There’s a nook, nestled between his neck and his shoulder, that makes her heart feel settled when she’s with him. Sometimes she reaches on her tip-toes as she wraps her arms around his waist, or grips his shirt between her fingers, thumbing the dark, patterned shirts she’s come to love so much on him. She likes to tease him that he’s a fancy pirate, and it makes him laugh, that full-bellied chuckle that she remembers from past-him in the past-Enchanted Forest.

Her favorite way to reach that nook, though, is when he’s relaxing on her couch, his vest off and his shirt unbuttoned to his chest, the charms on his necklace catching the light from her glowing lamp. The press of their hips together when she straddles his lap sends heat burning through her body, and she likes the way she can feel his pulse shudder as her lips glance along the muscles of his neck. She marks her trail to the nook, that curve where his neck meets his shoulder and she inhales his scent as his hand tightens at the small of her back. 

She’s come like this before, hips pressing into each other, the friction burning through her clothes until her cheeks are rosy and she’s panting against his skin, pressing hot-open mouthed kisses to his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, until she shudders against him. He’s come like this before, Emma in his lap, her hand down the front of pants, unbuttoned just enough that he’s hard in her hand, his mouth open and moaning her name, giving directions, calling her  _love_  as he thrusts hard and controlled and the wild into her. 

.

There’s a tone to his voice when he’s sated, a languid, sleepy tone that she likes to elicit as she explores his body. When they’ve tumbled the sheets and they’re laying face-to-face, she likes to glide her hands along his side, down his neck where his pulse beats slowly, and along his torso as his eyes blink sleepily at her. She asks him questions about the small, hidden tattoos across his heart, his ribs, his back and she places her lips on them as he tells her tales of his past adventures. She runs her fingers along the rough ridges of his scars, her hands asking questions as he tells her other tales, sadder tales, of his losses. 

She likes to push him to his back and press her lips to his chest, to the soft hair that covers his heart, until she turns her head to listen to it beating in his chest. Her hands like to wander, over the taut muscles in his thigh until she can feel him begin to harden again. She likes to playfully swat at his ass, the one that looks so good in his pants, until he begs her to take him into her mouth. 

She looks up at him though her lashes as she circles him with mouth and tongue, hand sliding, the other pressing at his inner thigh. When he goes to grip her hair, sometimes she swats his hand away and whispers against him,  _shhh_ , and,  _it’s your turn._  Sometimes she allows his fingers to thread through the strands as he takes control of the pace. But mostly she wants him to know that he is precious to her so she shows him with her mouth on his skin. 

.

There’s a flash to his eyes when she makes him wild with abandon, when she tells him to sit still and makes him watch as her hands travel down her body and slip below the red lace lying low on her hips. He likes this torture, he tells her with each clench of his jaw and lick of his lips. He likes this torture, he tells her with words, with everything he plans to do to her once she allows it. 

His eyes follow her hands underneath the lace as she slides them along her slick flesh, swollen and wanting, until she fills herself. He watches her hips undulate as her head hits the headboard. She tells him he can come closer, but he still cannot touch and he grins as he kneels in front of her, his blue eyes bright, not missing the flush along her torso and the sweat between her breasts. 

She knows the moment before he’ll snap and she takes him to that edge as her other hand plucks at her nipples and rolls them between her fingers. She whispers that she’s imagining it’s his mouth, his teeth scraping and pulling. And then she says  _now_  and lets go as he rips the lace from her body and, flipping her to her stomach, takes her - and takes her and  _takes_  her. 


	57. touch

Emma’s toes arch and curl as she stretches, her back bowing of the bed and her arms raised above her head. She can’t remember the last time she felt so thoroughly  _used_ , wrecked beyond belief with heart racing and breasts flushed red.

Killian rolls over on his stomach next to her, his back slick with sweat, the same salty skin she tasted as she straddled his body, his hand at the small of her back, controlling the slide of her hips while he thrust. She pressed her lips to his neck, tongue tasting his skin as she made him groan with scrapes of teeth.

Her eyes follow the angles and planes of his body, and she has to admit, she likes this view. She likes it _a lot_.

.

She likes to run her hands all along his body, the way she does now, gliding along his firm muscles that twitch at her touch, marveling at the way even pirates flush red with desire. She loves to press her lips on his skin, as he whispers and groans, and tells her how much he  _needs_  her.When she takes him in her mouth, she revels in the way his hand wraps around her hair, winding through, gripping, pulling until he pulls her away and flips her onto her back and slides home.

.

Sometimes Killian is relentless and she loves that, too, when his fingers demand a response from her body as they touch every dip and swell and curve of her body, when his teeth pull at her nipples and his tongue slides along slick flesh. When her body twists until she feels like she cannot take anymore. When he finally allows her to let go. 

.

But her favorite thing is this, is  _now_. It’s the things she never let herself enjoy before. Those quiet moments  _after_  when her heart is still racing and her skin is still buzzing and she stretches her skin. The moments where he rolls to his stomach and she soothes his body with her touch, reassuring him that she is still here with him, that this is something  _more._


	58. untitled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr prompt: emma showing killian the meaning of '69'

Killian’s mouth is hot against her, tongue at her clit as she presses down on his lips. Her heart is racing and she’s flushed all over, her breasts bouncing with each circle of her hips. Her hands wind around the slats of her headboard as his fingers dig into her hips, encouraging the way she rocks back and forth with increased pressure. His beard is rough against her inner thighs, the scrape making her grip tighter as she throws her head back with a moan. 

She’s so close and she says so, her words slurring as Killian’s tongue slides along her slippery skin, her breath hitching as he hums his approval at much she wants him, how wanton she must look, riding his face with her hair falling in waves down her back. He pushes her to the edge, his hand moving from her hip to the small of her back, still pressing - and pressing and pressing - until she’s about to burst. That’s when she pulls away, body thrumming and pulsing as she hovers over him. 

His breath sends another jolt of heat through her body as he asks her why she stopped. Instead of replying, though, she swivels her body around until she’s on her knees and she hooks her fingers under the waistband of his shorts and pulls them down his legs, away from her. Her hands circle his erection as his hips reach up to meet her motion and she tells him that he should get a turn, too. 

His skin is salty as she flicks out her tongue to tease him, and then he lets out a small grunt of pleasure as her lips wrap around his tip and slide down, slowly, just enough to make him mad with want until he’s thrusting into her mouth as she grips his inner thighs. His mouth is so close to her again, but he waits while she works, hand roaming her skin, mindless words of pleasure escaping his lips. 

Then - his hand slides along the curve of her ass before he gives her a swat, a sharp sting running through her body until she releases him with a pop. She’d complain but it’s quickly followed by his mouth back where it was it’s like nothing else, the way she feels when his mouth touches her again. It’s as if she’s been left wanting for hours, with the way her belly bursts at the merest tough and the burn between her legs rebuilds until she explodes with fluttering skin and gasping breaths. 


	59. emma + goodbyes

Emma Swan has plenty of practice saying goodbye. She remembers tearful goodbyes with long hugs when she is five years old, six, seven. She knows the exact day that the tears stopped falling, when she was eight years old and she was transferred to her latest group home. She watched out of the rear window of the van, the kids from the old home waving, jaws clenched, eyes blank. She realized, then, that she wasn’t sad to leave, that she was never going to be sad to leave again.

.

She said goodbye to her family on a cloudy winter day, with the dark clouds of a curse rolling across the sky. She felt her mother’s lips on her forehead as the tears rolled down her cheeks, feeling like rivers, carving into the lines of her face. 

.

Emma Swan has plenty of practice  _not_  saying goodbye. She remembers the cold steel of handcuffs, first around her wrists as she hears the voice of the cop telling her that Neal was not coming for her, that she was going someplace  _else_. She knows the exact moment that Henry left the room at the hospital in the doctor’s arms, the steel against her ankles this time, his tiny yells disappearing down the hall.

.

She did not say goodbye to Hook as he promised to think of her everyday, her lips twitching and chest gasping for air as she held back more tears. She just told him good and watched the light form in his eyes one last time. 

.

She tells Killian goodbye  _now_ , and hears the break in his voice as he says it in return. She memorizes the way his lips pressed against skin, the way he traveled down her jaw and the deep, shuddering of his chest as he rested his face into her curve of her neck, breathing her in. She memorizes the grip of his fingers on her jacket and the tingling ghost of sensation that remains as he pulls away from her. 

.

It’s simple, she realizes as he walks away. She  _loves_  him, she thinks as she presses her fingers to her lips, But it’s not the tearful goodbye that makes her linger on the moment. It’s the haunting fear that something is missing that slams into her gut, as her fingers brush against her own skin. But then the curse bursts through the room and, cradling her brother in her arms, she waits for the sky to fall. 


	60. cs + collarbone kiss

"Have I ever told you how much I love this garment of yours, love?" Killian asks as his fingers trace the edge her dress, along her collarbone, over the slopes of her bare shoulders, as the silky fabric slides down her arm. 

She hums her reply as his lips replace his fingers, her body straining up towards his, back bowing off her bed. His lips trace the delicate skin above the neckline of her dress, tongue flicking out to taste her skin.  

"All night," he whispers against her body, as he toys with the fabric of her dress, "I watched this bit slip and slip, until all I could see was skin." 

He slides his body along hers until his lips press against hers gently. “It was torture,” he continues, as his hand snakes around her back until it reaches the zipper of her dress. “Torture,” he repeats as he slowly lowers the zipper, bringing her body flush against his.

"Watching," he says in between lips clinging.

"Waiting," he says and she pulls at his lips with her teeth.

"Wanting," he says as she threads her fingers though the hair at the nape of his neck.

"Well," she says, finally, "You have me now." 


	61. christmas morning sexytimes

She wakes up to a voice - half laughing, half exasperated - “Swan. Swan.  _Swaaaan._ ” 

Jolting awake, her heart thumping wildly for moments before settling into a sleepy, relaxed pace, she mumbles, “Killian it’s not even light out yet.”

“Aye,” he whispers as his hand travels across the bare stretch of skin at her waist, her shirt riding up as she shifts and rolls to face him, “But as beautiful as you are, and as delighted as I am to be sharing your bed…”

He trails off and Emma leans up on her elbow. His hair is sticking up from sleep and his eyelids are still heavy (and is that a trace of smudged eyeliner darkening his skin?), giving him an air of menacing pirate. But really it’s the pout at his lips that has her leaning in for a quick kiss before she grumbles, “What couldn’t wait until morning?”

He barks out a short laugh and then, “You’re sleeping on my pillow, love.”

She feels a blush creeping along her skin as she turns her head and - sure enough - she’s rolled to his side of the bed and placed herself smack-dab in the middle of his pillow. Meanwhile, he’s lying on a sliver of bed, his back close to the edge. She gives him a sheepish grin and an embarrassed shrug as his hand travels to her cheek, his fingers brushing against her burning skin. 

“It’s quite alright, darling. I’m used to a small bed,” he whispers as his body inches closer to hers, and she thinks of his captain’s quarters on the Jolly Roger. “Besides,” his voice deepens as he leans close to her ear, his hot breath tickling her skin, “I quite like getting close to you.” 

His hips press into hers and she feels him - hot and hard - between her legs. It’s pure instinct at this point, the way her hands reach out to grip the fabric at his hips, the way her hips roll into his. His body knows her now, and hers his. There’s a belonging that she feels when they slide into each other, a perfect alignment that sends a jolt to her heart. 

His lips brush against her jaw, her ear, as he nuzzles into her neck and her leg climbs until it’s wrapped around his hips, her muscles tightening as she brings him closer to her, until the friction hits her center and that aching want builds (and builds and builds). “You know,” he whispers with a hitch in his breath as her hands wander along his back, down under the drawstring pants until she’s gliding along his ass, muscles tightening with each roll of his hips into hers. “We have  _hours_  before we need to be at the loft for the holiday brunch.”

“We do, indeed,” she murmurs against his lips, hers catching his, tongue sliding as his lips open for hers.

It feels like hours, they spend like that, lips fused together, teeth pulling, tongues soothing, as her fingers fist in his hair and he angles his hips, fingers pressing at the small of her back until it’s purely elemental what happens next. His hand traveling to her front, sliding down her pants, his fingers gliding along her slick center, pressing into her with gentle strokes until she gasps, “More,” and the heel of his hand grinds against her.  

Her skin flushed with one orgasm, her insides fluttering against his fingers, he rolls her to her back and his hand slides under her shirt until it lifts over her head. His fingers brush against her nipples, plucking and rolling until they’re hard against his hand. He follows with his mouth, pulling and sucking until her back arches and her hands push his pants down his hips - just low enough that he brushes her center, showing him how  _greedy_ she is. 

He’s not gentle as he slams into her, her legs wrapping around his hips. His lips find the spot on her neck that makes her wild as he thrusts into her, hips pumping fast against her, her hands guiding him with fingers digging into his back, nails dragging along skin. It doesn’t take long for him and then - because he’s a gentleman, of course - his lips find her and his tongue circles her clit until she gasps his name just one more time. 

(They fall back into sleep, clothes still in disarray, until she wakes him with a murmured, “Merry Christmas, Killian,” against his skin as she wraps her lips around him and his fingers tangle in her hair.)


	62. untitled: nye drabble

It’s not much, but it’s theirs, the fire roaring while the snow falls outside. They have champagne in tumblers (because Emma loves her hodge-pudge glassware) as the clock inches towards midnight.

"I could get used to this tradition of yours, love," Killian says in that low, cheeky tone, as he and Emma clink their glasses together.

"You’d love anything that involves my lips on yours," she teases as she leans closer to him.

As the clock on Main Street chimes midnight he tastes sweet, their lips clinging mad tongues tangling. They wake up on the couch in the morning, limbs entwined, and Emma whispers, “Happy New Year.”


	63. resolutions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr request: "my resolution was to tell you how I feel so you’re going to sit there while I do it"

Swan had told him to sit, so he’s sitting comfortably on the couch that he helped her move into her new place a month ago. (And really, she hadn’t actually  _told_  him to sit, it was more like her hands on his shoulders, pressing him back down, as he had leaned across the cushions, hoping for a little taste of her lips on his.)

Emma has her serious face on, so he tries to focus on the way she stands, then sits, and stands again, before pacing around the room - and not on the fact that she would taste like the hot chocolate she had been drinking. The one that he’d laced with rum at her request as they lazed around her place before meeting the rest of the family at Regina’s for this realm’s celebration of the new year.

He wants to stand and reassure her, let her know that whatever it is that is on her mind, he’ll support her. But she gives him a glare as he shifts his hips (just barely, but the same as he can read her, she can read him, and that knowledge spreads warmth from his heart straight through to his gut). 

"No," she says as she watches him carefully, "Stay there. Because if you touch me you’ll distract me and I need to stay clear-headed for this."

That makes him want to grin and tease that he’s always more than willing to distract her, but he knows that it wouldn’t go over well,  _at all_ , so he bites his lip and he’s rewarded with a flash of her eyes, as they flicker down for the fastest of seconds, before she continues, “So there’s this tradition we have here in this land.”

She pauses and gulps and it’s everything he can do to  _not_  get up and to remain  _exactly_ where she told him to remain. (It’s torture, this waiting while Swan is so obviously uncomfortable.) Then she opts for the joke, “And it’s not that kissing one you were so excited about earlier today.”

She’s right that he loves the tradition, kissing as the old year shifts into the new, kissing allowed in front of her family, without David giving him a glare from the corner of his eyes or Mary Margaret’s eyes shifting away discreetly. But it is clear she’s nervous, so all he says is, “You know you can tell me anything, love.”

She grimaces at him, her lips shrinking into themselves for a moment. She paces more before stopping, standing so still right in front of him, “So we do this thing where we make ourselves promises. Things that we’re going to do or accomplish in a year.” 

She’s not meeting his eyes for long, glances skittering away, around the room, never remaining still, but he still smiles because she’s Swan, and she wants to tell him something, something  _important._

_“_ So I told myself this year,” she continues, “That I would stop being so…well…me. I mean, you know, I’m not great with this stuff,” as she points to the air between their bodies. “You know, this  _together_ stuff.”

"Hey," he’s gentle as he catches one her her hands, his thumb circling the palm of her hand. "I  _want_ you to be you.” 

And it’s like everything about her visibly relaxes, her body leans toward him and he takes that momentum and tugs at her hand, pulling her into his lap. After a collapse of limbs and some laughter, she positions herself, legs straddling his hips. She doesn’t press to hard, just lightly resting as he cannot help but to slowly trace his hand along her back, tangling in her her hair as it falls down her back in waves. 

She meets his eyes and holds them, her pupils growing larger, darker, as her body relaxes further. “You know, right?” She asks him earnestly, “You know how much I care for you?”

He answers her with his lips, pressing against hers as he shifts his hips enough that she just falls into him. They remain that way for minutes, mouths lazily exploring before he pulls away to murmur, “I’ve always know, Swan. But it’s nice to hear.”

Her hands, which had been resting on his face, nails scratching under his scruff (that he knows she loves so much, even when she has red marks the next morning in places hidden by clothes and propriety), shift to his hair where she gives a tug and pulls his face back to hers. 

She whispers the words against his lips and then - “Now lets get back to practicing for later” - and her lips meet his yet again. 


	64. relentless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr prompt: can you write smut from Killian's pov?

He loves the velvety feel of her skin against his mouth, as his lips move down, her jaw, her neck, that hollow between her breasts. Her skin sweet and her nipples pink, as his tongue curls around them, making her gasp, making her back bow off the bed, her legs wrapping around his, trying to get as close to him as possible. She tastes like fruit, her scent of desire wafting around him, the feel of her against his tongue, his cock hard and aching as he presses his hips into the bed, looking for friction of any kind.

He could spend hours on her nipples, watching as they harden for his lips, his teeth, his tongue. Her hips raise along with her back, pressing against his chest and he can feel how wet she is through her undergarments, those filmy, silky bits she likes to wear. The ones he likes to rip off her with his hook, the metal sliding along her slick flesh, the scent lingering for hours afterwards. 

It’s a bit dirty and she likes it, she likes the pirate side (she also likes the hero side which he’s learned from time to time, the way she presses her body against his after a win against the villains, the way he can feel her heart against his). But sometimes, for her, it’s about the power that he carries in his hand, his hook, the way his hips press hers into the mattress as he fucks her. Swiftly entering her warm center, the way her breasts bounce at the force of it. She lets out little whimpers sometimes when he hits her clit just right - and circles his hips until she flutters around him. 

Sometimes she really makes him work for it, his heart racing as she presses her foot to his chest and he watches as her hands slide down her front, tweaking her nipples, gliding along her clit, slipping inside herself. That’s what she says when she does this -  _do you like watching me fuck myself with my hand? -_ and she knows it makes him wild with her knowing eyes and the way she sucks at her lower lip. Being denied the pleasure of touching her himself drives him wild with want, being teased with what he craves, the pink of her slick flesh there, within reach, but denied to him. 

And when it’s his turn, he loves to do the same, to press his fingers against her outer folds, his mouth hovering over her clit as he whispers against her skin -  _somebody’s been a naughty savior -_ her hips undulate against his lips and he presses her down with his hook, with his fingers, until she falls into the mattress, unable to move. He brings her to the brink with his mouth until she begs for his fingers, for his  _cock_  (and how he loves to make her say that word, that filthy word coming from her pink lips makes him harder). He’ll stop and then gently glide his fingers along her, never pressing in, making her skin flush and sweat with need. 

There’s something about hearing her voice keening his name that makes him come, every time. He could spend hours inside her, her muscles working him, her hips circling as she rides him, the curve of her ass against him as he presses her stomach to the bed, his hand grasping at her hair. But as soon as she calls his name, thready with need, gasping for air, she finishes him, she owns him. 

(He pulls her body towards him when they finish, her head nuzzling the crook of his neck, his fingers tracing patterns along her arm as their hearts slow back to normal and their skin loses the flushed glow of orgasm. And he loves these moments, too, his sense of belonging intact.)


	65. wool socks and domesticated pirates

Emma wishes Granny’s rooms had their own fireplace. She knows it would be some kind of violation of the fire code (though one can never be sure in magical towns and ready-made laws). It’s the one thing that would make the morning perfect she thinks as she snuggles in closer to Killian’s warm body. He’s practically a furnace, she’s discovered, in the weeks since he almost lost his heart. (A conversation that she knows she’s been avoiding as they explore each other’s bodies and Emma teaches Killian the bases, inch of exposed skin by inch.)

It’s been so quiet, though, and Emma fears that once she speaks the words, once she acknowledges that there is still a magical - not problem, but  _something_  - between them, everything will fall apart. 

She’s learning to trust him bit by bit, telling him stories that she’s not sure she’ll ever tell anyone else. (Mary Margaret doesn’t need the guilt of the small scars on her body that mark places and let-downs, not now that she’s said, “I love you, mom,” when they weren’t about to die.) She trusts him enough to know he will never  _choose_  to leave her. But will he seek revenge again? (She’s not fool enough to think that he’s forgotten the way that Gold controlled him.)

They haven’t left his room in days, the weather having just enough of a bite that she doesn’t feel like pulling on her wool socks and wool beanie to patrol the town. She called David since he’s been so antsy about the Will Scarlet mess and her mother’s pardon, that she told him to take control for a few days. He was happy enough to do so that he ignored her answer to Mary Margaret’s question as to whether she plans to come home to the loft that night (which reminds her, she really needs to get them to stop talking to her on speakerphone.) (And she needs her own place.)

The first night she stayed, picking the lock and slipping into sleep next to him after a long debrief about operation mongoose and the perils of family keeping too many secrets from one another (isn’t that  _always_  how trouble goes from bad to worse?). They only got to second base the next day, his hand sliding under her shirt, finding her braless in the morning. His fingers plucking at her nipples before he lifted her shirt up. His lips pulled, his teeth tugged, as her hips rode up against him, the friction making her come. 

(That one’s just for you, he whispered, as she fell back to sleep until evening when he woke her with dinner in hand and his lips against hers.)

Last night they rounded third base, her straddling him and riding his hand, his thumb circling at her clit. She came - with a rush of power - that made the lights flicker. She wiped the satisfied smirk off Killian’s lips, though, as she slid down his body and returned the favor with her mouth, her lips wrapping around him until he gripped her hair and said her name with a hoarse shout. 

This morning she stretches lazily, pulling on her pants and socks, making her way down into the kitchen where Granny is preparing breakfast. With only minor grumbles from the older woman, Emma fixes a plate and brings it up to her sleeping pirate. He’s awake by the time she returns with a lazy grin and, “Just how much do you think Granny will overcharge us for this plate, love?”

The spoke of silly things, of private things, things that Emma used to imagine lovers whispered to each other at night. But she did press her lips to his chest, often, his fingers trailing through her hair, brushing through tangles as she leaned her head against him until interrupted by the buzzing of her phone. 

"Is something wrong?" She asks her mother.

"I think your father might like to see you for dinner tomorrow," Mary Margaret replies, with a bite of humor in her tone. 

After she hangs up, Emma looks at Killian, sitting up in bed, sheets resting at his waist. “We’re being summoned from our sex den,” she smiles. 

"Tonight?" He watches, carefully for her answer.

She doesn’t answer immediately, she makes her way back to bed, crawling over him until their hips meet. “Tomorrow,” she shares as his hand grips her hip and she presses down on him, feeling his erection through the sheet.

(That night they reach home, his arm around her waist as he thrusts into her, her face in the crook of his neck, nails scratching down his back as her hips move.

He comes right after her, their lips finding each other, bodies pressed together, where she can feel his heart beating against hers.)


	66. Chapter 66

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon on tumblr requested rough, dirty sex

He’s spread her legs, his hand on one, his hook on the other, and the cold metal scratches at her as she tries to lift her hips closer and closer as his mouth hovers over her slit. She’s going to bruise from the pressure and she loves the way it feels, the contrast of skin pressing into her and the open empty aching that she feels as he whispers into the air between them, “Look at you, so pretty and pink. So wet and greedy.”

She whines as her elbows slip further down the counter and her back hits the marble. The cool of it eases her flushed skin and the whine turns into a groan as his mouth finds her, lips sucking at her clit, his hand and his hook still holding her in place. 

She wants something inside her,  _anything_ , his finger, his cock, the cool slide of the curve of his hook against her slick flesh. But he knows it, the bastard, and his lips form a smile against her as the noises she’s making turn into gasping, pleading, noises. 

His tongue flicks out and the ache continues to grow as he slides it through her folds, and says against her skin how sweet she tastes, how he loves driving her mad with want, how he loves making his mark against her pale skin. 

And then suddenly all she feels is the release of his hold and a cool rush of air against her and she leans up on her elbows with a glare. A glare that quickly fades as he’s pushing his pants down his hips and freeing his erection. His eyes are glazed and as much control as he likes to pretend he has, she knows that she drives him just as mad as he does her. 

He thrusts into her with one quick slide, his hook at her hip - another red mark to add to the others - his hand against the counter for leverage. She pulls his hair and tugs his lips to hers, where she can taste herself as her tongue slides against his. 

His hips pump harder, his cock moving inside her, her breasts jiggling out the cups of her lacy, barely-there bra. He leans his head down and shifts his hand to her collarbone, thumb still pressing, pressing,  _pressing_ , so he can take a nipple into his mouth, teeth tugging, the pleasure/pain of it shooting down her spine. 

Her hands shift down to his ass and with a little smack, she grabs hold and her hips undulate faster and faster until she’s fluttering around him and his hand shifts yet again to her hair, pulling as his lips travel to her neck. He groans her name against her skin as he comes, his hips moving as he rides it out. 

(She has a cramp in her leg from the way her legs wrapped around him, her heel digging into his calves and she has red lines from his hook and indents in her skin from his fingers. 

She feels well-used and glorious, as their chests press together, and she feels the rapid beat of his heart against hers.)


	67. Chapter 67

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a friend on tumblr asked for Killian seeing Emma in a white top, braless, for the the first time. this happened.

He helped her move into her new place (finally) and she could tell from the way that he lingered, waiting until her parents had said their goodbyes, waiting until Henry hopped up from the couch, that he was angling for an invite to stay longer. It’s not that she minds (in fact she loves to have him in any way she can, by her side in battle and flirting with her across the table at the diner), but tonight feels different, charged, her skin buzzing with nerves. With expectations. (With desires.)

There have been so many close calls, hips pressed into his door at Granny’s, his lips clinging to hers as his hand roams her skin, under the hem of her shirt, up her back, fingers twisting at the strap of her bra. There’s been her bare foot, tracing his leg, under the table at the loft while Mary Margaret and David cook dinner and Henry reads his book, teasing glances over paperwork at the station and late nights with his fingers pressed against her, unsnapping her pants and making her writhe.

It’s been leading to this, all along, and she’s nervous, so nervous because she hasn’t done this since Walsh (and oh how she’d love to pretend that away) and before that is was one night stands and racing to orgasm so she could be alone again.

So she tells him, “You can stay but I’m going to shower and get take-out.”

By the way he smiles at her in reply, she knows that he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter what they do, as long as lets him stay with her. It scares her, this certainty of his - is it unconditional or are there strings hiding, lurking, somewhere dangerous to be uncovered? It’s why she still pulls away, skin flushed and heart racing, before too many clothes come off. Before she has to feel so exposed.

She lets home shower first, finding a pile of neatly folded clothes for him in the bag that Mary Margaret left (giving her a little wink, and making emma cringe at how obvious they must have been), while she places an order for Chinese. His skin is still damp when he returns to the living room, hair sticking up and cotton pants slung low on his hips. It makes her hear beat a little faster, and by the way his eyes narrow at her, it’s like he just knows. He pulls her towards him as she makes her way down the hall, his fingers tracing the pulse that flutters at her neck, his lips gently brushing against her skin before releasing her.

Two can play that teasing game, she thinks, as she runs her hands along her body and the water flowed over her skin. She pulsing and sensitive and she knows, deep in her gut, that it’s time. That she wants him. Tonight.

So when she slips some clothes on, she forgoes a bra under her tank and she makes her way to the room where Killian is setting up their food. His eyes grow wide as he looks up and watches her, breasts swaying as she walks, her thin white shirt hiding nothing, not the aroused peaks of her breasts, or the pink flush of her skin. The response is immediate, as he abandons their food and maneuvers them to the couch, pressing her into the soft cushions. His hips circle against her as his hand sneaks up under her shirt. And as he cups her bare skin, they both groan.

(Later, limbs tangled as they eat cold Chinese food, her soft blanket over her shoulders, he whispers in her ear, “You’re a bloody minx, darling.”)


	68. Chapter 68

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cs + cheek kiss

t happens one day without even thinking about it. She’s leaving his room at Granny’s for the station, pulling on her boots, reaching for her scarf and winding it around her neck. He’s holding out her leather jacket and smiling as he watches her. 

(He’s wrapped only in a towel, that devilish smirk tempting her to tug it away and push him on the bed for another round. His hair is sticking up from her fingers this morning, grasping and pulling as he nipped at her skin, that spot below her ear that drives her mad, his hips thrusting, pressing her into the mattress.)

She bites her lip - which makes his eyes flash - and she grins at him, a broad, happy grin, because she know how much he loves the way it marks her lips. It’s second nature, this comfortable teasing between them.

Now, that is. 

(Weeks ago, they were still treading water, pretending like everything was fine. And then the fight - the words they were both holding back, his secrets, his hand, his fucking  _heart_  in the hands of the Dark One. The way she still pushes people away, the way she ran instead of trusting herself with her powers. It all came tumbling out.)

Now, it’s so simple to lean over and pluck her red leather from his outstretched hand. She places hers on his wrist and leans in with a whispered,  _thanks_ , as her lips graze against his cheek. She pulls back, almost surprised, though he takes no notice of it. She cocks her head and watches him as he turns and makes his way back to the bed. 

(He’s fastidious, her pirate, always pulling the sheets smooth in the morning, straightening the pillows and the quilt.)

She shouts goodbye and see you later as she exits the room, the door slamming behind her. She leans against it, though, before she makes her way down the stairs, a to-go cup of coffee waiting for her with Ruby. She sighs as she traces her lips with her fingers and realizes that she’s never been in that situation before. The casual leaving, the somebody to come home to at night. 

Her heart gives a little squeeze and then she’s off to face whatever magical dangers are in store for the day.


	69. Chapter 69

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cs + wall sex

His hips digging into her and her heel resting on chair next to them are the only things anchoring her to the wall and it should hurt the way he presses against her - how hard the wall feels against her back, how hard he feels in front of her. But it doesn’t hurt at all, she’s achy and greedy and her fingers hook through his belt loops while his hook rests on her waist, the cold metal curve sliding along her bare skin. 

His hand creeps up her bare torso, tugging at the lace of her bra, his fingers curling around her nipple while his lips suck at her neck, in the spot below her ear, the one that makes her wild. So she counters that with her fingers pushing him back, dragging down the zipper of his jeans, sliding beneath the cotton fabric of his boxers. 

He’s hard and as hot as he felt when he was rubbing against her, the friction building between her legs, the static sparking as he shifted back. Her hand wraps around him, gliding along until his hips are pumping into her and his hand moves to her hair, grasping and tugging until he’s made a ponytail around his fist and her head rolls back to hit the wall. 

Her skit rides up her thighs, his hook brushing the silky fabric up, up, up, until the cool air hits her skin, the curve of his hook pressing into her swollen flesh through the lace of her panties until he reaches her clit and presses hard. She whines, a keening, broken noise from the back of her throat, as she comes, her insides fluttering yet needing more.

But it’s not enough with him, it’s never enough until he’s inside her, fucking into her so hard that has to close her eyes against the power of it all, her heart racing in her chest as he groans her name against her skin. So she pushes him away and she slides her panties down, her skirt and heels remaining, his hand shifting until he’s twisting the fabric with his fingers. 

She slides his pants down next - and the boxers with them - her foot still resting on the chair. His tongue flicks out to taste his lower lip as he examines her, flushed skin, her body pink and wet and open to him. She can feel the pulse flutter in her neck, between her legs, as she waits. And then he’s inside her, hook scratching at the wall, hand at her hips.


	70. Chapter 70

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cs + car sex prompt 
> 
> (I LOVE YOUR FICS!!! You're one of my favourite smut writers. I don't know if you take prompts? Sorry to bother you, if you don't. Prompt: Emma has this wild fantasy where Killian takes her from behind on the car hood of the police car. Killian decides to make that fantasy real (OMG, can't believe I actually typed that *hides*))

Ever since that dream she had, Emma can’t get behind the wheel of her car without a blush marring her cheeks. They warm and flush and she’s so lucky that she doesn’t have a deputy that rides along with her because surely she’d had to field some uncomfortable questions. She’d never thought of it before the dream - of Killian bending her over, the metal of her car at her front, his hand at the back of her neck, traveling down her body, pressing at her through her jeans, all while he whispered dirty things into her ear. 

But now? Now it’s all she can think about when she’s behind the wheel. 

It’s all his fault, too. It’s his fault that they had the conversation, his body naked and curled against her back, their skin still flushed and sweaty, her heart still racing.  _Tell me, love,_ he’d said to her as his hand trailed along her side, her flesh responding with tingling nerves.  _Tell me something dirty._ She hadn’t responded with words, not immediately. Instead she pushed him on his back and she knelt before him. She wrapped her hand first and then, in between the stretch of her lips around him, she told him how much she likes this, having him at her mercy, making him desperate, making him beg for her. 

His eyes flashed, then, and with his hand around her waist, flipped their bodies until she was pressed, stomach to bed, his hand wrapped around her hair, his voice in her ear as he told her that he’s a pirate and that pirates do not  _beg._  

(Even though later he does just that, as she teases him with the slide her body over his, back and forth, not taking him inside her until he says the words.)

And then later, the dream happened. 

.

The next time he’s in her car it’s like he  _knows._  She’s tried to control her reaction but, with magic coursing through her and the very  _visual_  memory of her dream, she’s slammed with that buzzing, aching desire as soon as she slides into the vehicle and clicks the seatbelt into place. She knows her cheeks are pink and her chest is rising more heavily, more quickly than mere moments before. 

He sneaks glances at her as they make their way to the edge of town - where reports have surfaced that there are strange happenings yet again. His eyes slide to her and slide away, though it’s not like he’s really trying to  _hide_ his interest. Finally she snaps, “What?”

"Nothing, love," he says quickly and she glances at him. He has a smirk at his lips, but his face is otherwise blank and she knows it’s not  _nothing,_ so she tells him so. 

"Pull over, then," he grins at her. 

When she does, his hand slides around her neck and he pulls her in for a kiss, his lips teasing hers open, his tongue tangling with hers. In between presses of lips he whispers, “You want to tell me what has you all hot and bothered, Swan?”

She protests but he stops her with another kiss and then, “You know I’m right.”

Her lips hover over his and she smiles against them as she presses flirting kisses to his, light and quick between words, “Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t.”

The crackle from the antiquated system in her antiquated car interrupts whatever moment that was brewing between them with David’s voice on the other end telling them to get to the town line, and quickly. 

"Don’t think this is over," he says with a leer as she pulls away and puts the car in drive. 

And she wonders if he’s realized by now that she accepts this, accepts that it will  _never_  be over. 

.

As they make their way back to the squad car - Emma wanted to park far enough away that she couldn’t see the lurkers at the edge of town, even though she knew that they couldn’t see her in return - he made a show of forgetting. But when they reached the car, she found her back pressed against the door, his hips pinning her to the metal. 

His fingers curled around the the back of her neck and his thumb traced the skin where her pulse beat, rapidly increasing as he stands patiently, eyes dark and heavy-lidded.

"I know your signs of arousal well, darling," he whispers in her ear as his fingers trail down her skin, his hand reaching underneath the collar of her jacket. 

"The flush of your skin between your breasts, for example" he continues as he cups her though her shirt, gently circling until her nipples begin to harden. It might be the pressure there, or the brush of his lips against her neck, but she swears she can feel her pulse throbbing along every inch of her body. 

His hand continues to move along her body until his fingers wrap around hers, threading them together as his hips press harder, “And the way your fingers tap a pattern on your leg,” he bites her ear, tugging gently as his tongue flicks out to soothe her skin. 

His thumb traces hers, dragging along the nerves until she exhales, a soft breath, a moan, and then the words tumble out of her mouth. Her cheeks blaze red as he steps back, his hand shifting yet again, holding her chin in place, forcing her eyes on him and only him. 

.

If he’s surprised at all, he doesn’t show it, just tilts his head a little to the right before swooping down and capturing her lips. Because that’s exactly what it feels like, the first hard press of skin, the suction from his tugging lips, the way his tongue sweeps through her mouth. He pulls away just as quickly, too, his hand fisting her hair as he spins her body and anchors her between his erection and her car. 

Releasing her hair, his fingers find the button of her jeans and he unzips, slowly, until there’s just enough room to slide along her skin, under the satin and lace, finding her slick and swollen. She’d be embarrassed about how quickly she comes, except his voice in her ear tells her just how much he loves how much she wants him and his greed fuels her greed. 

.

"Shall we continue here, or back at home?" he asks her, as her body relaxes against his, her pulse slowing, back to normal.The tight desire in her gut unfurling into something  _more_  when he says home with that note of content in his tone, even as his body vibrates with need. She turns to face him, her hands running along his back, hooking beneath the waist of his pants, tugging his body towards hers. 

He waits and watches her carefully as she toys with the fabric, making her decision,  _trying_  to make her decision. And it’s that - that calm, steady, patience - that does it for her, makes her decision not to wait. Yes, the desire for him builds (it seems always there, always building and calming) and yes, he is ready to go. But he’d wait if she asked and it feels silly that it means so much to her because it’s just sex.

But it’s also not  _just_  sex.

.

It was a great decision, a fucking fantastic decision, she thinks as her hands are cold against the hood of her car and his hook is at her hip as he thrusts, his fingers at her clit. She can feel the rough material of his jeans against the back of her thighs and she knows it’s going to burn tomorrow when she pulls on her jeans and boots, knows it’s going to burn when she sits at her desk or rides in her car. 

But his lips are at her neck and he’s whispering in her ear how good she feels around him and she doesn’t care about the burn or the pain. She cares about the pressure building between her legs and how her hands now feel like they’re burning the hood of her car and she’s thanking her ridiculous brain and its ridiculous dream because he comes and then he shifts so that the heel of his hand is circling and his hook is digging into her skin. 

(She cares about the way he smiles when she says, “Now, let’s go home.”)


	71. Chapter 71

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> inspired by 'the words' music video (i.e. bathtub sex)

Emma sits on the edge of the tub, watching as the water travels along Killian’s body, following him as he sinks deeper into the tub. It splashes his collarbone, then recedes and droplets stick to his skin.

_She wants._

She wants to lick that spot on his neck that’s exposed as his head rolls back, eyes closed at the pleasure he finds from the warm water. The expression he makes is borderline obscene, one that she’s seen before, kneeling in front of him in bed, her lips wrapped around him as he grips the headboard with his hand. 

_She wants._

.

She’s discovered that he loves to take a bath in her deep, old fashioned, claw foot tub. It was one of the selling points for her new place, when they were checking out the listings together. The way his eyes lit up when they reached the room, the way he wrapped his arms around her and whispered in her ear with a wicked lilt in his voice, “Just imagine all the possibilities, Swan.”

.

His face snaps to attention at the sound of her feet shifting in the water and he watches her intently, eyes dark and hooded, as she slowly unbuttons the shirt (his, of course) that she’s been wearing. She starts from the bottom, calling his attention and holding it, his tongue flicking out to taste his lips, his teeth biting when she reaches the button between her breasts. 

When she reveals herself, black lacy bra underneath, his eyes widen and he moves with surprising grace and speed until he’s kneeing in front of her, their lips level and his hand twisting at the clasp on her back. Clumsy with his wet fingers, he slides his hand along her back until he reaches the strap and, lips at her neck, pulls the down until her breasts are free.

She reaches around and arches her back, twisting the clasp until it gives as his thumb circles her nipple. Then - he leans backwards and pulls her forwards and they land with a splash to her face. Its awkward and it’s messy as the water lands with a slap around the tub, but his eyes meet hers and they laugh as their lips find the other.

.

He tells her stories as they lay, her back to his front, his arms curled around her body. He tells her tales of his early years at sea. He tells her of the old ship he found on jaunt to the harbor and of how he would see her sail again if he could. His voice deepens as he tells her words of love as his fingers run through her hair, lifting the wet strands off her neck, tracing her pulse with his thumb. He tells her words of desire as his hand glides along her curves, as he cups her breast, traces her navel, until she turns in his arms and her eyes blaze.

_She wants._

.

Later, she leans over him as his fingers trace her swollen flesh, slick with want and water and the steam surrounds them. She’s panting his name as he teases her. Teases with those gentle brushes of skin on skin until she’s aching for more, her orgasm elusive.

Then she’s glaring at him and he’s smiling, a priate’s grin, as he watches her hips moving faster, trying to press as hard as she can, seeking that friction, that burn. And then she’s the one grinning as her hands grip him and she slides him into her body, his hand seeking her hip, fingers keeping her in place, his eyes closing and his head rolling back as her hips move. 

.

She loves the way he looks afterwards, hair wet, fingers brushing it back, his towel slung low over his hips. He takes the edges of her robe and pulls her towards him for a kiss. His lips are soft on hers as their bodies sway together. And it’s so impossible, so soon after being sated, but she’s learning that it’s like this always.

_She wants._


	72. Chapter 72

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cs + routines

It’s been surprisingly easy to slip into the small patterns of life with him, no crisis looming on the horizon, his spyglass remaining atop the dresser in his room at Granny’s. Safely nestled between the small box that contains his charms and adornments no longer is use, like the dark glittering earring that she sometimes misses, and the heavy kohl that used to line his eyes. 

He’s purchased a new eyeliner these days, a little less heavy, and carefully applied as he leans over the sink in the shared bathroom at the end of the hall, where she sometimes sits at the edge of the tub, knees to chest, while he hums a tune. He wraps a towel around his waist and his charms sway in the air as he leans forward to apply and artfully smudge the dark pencil.

She resisted this for so long, the pull between them and the steady calm that she feels when he’s by her side. She resisted his flashing eyes and innuendos and the way her skin responds, jumpy and electric whenever he touches her. 

She resisted so long that she somehow convinced herself that it would be  _hard._

_____

She still doesn’t like to talk about it, the way that he crumpled to the ground, his heart, glowing red, safely back in his possession. She doesn’t like to think about how it felt to hold it in her hands, and how she pressed it back into his chest so quickly, her blood pumping so furiously, so afraid that if she doesn’t do this  _immediately_  it might disappear from her hands. 

She doesn’t like to talk about it, but even still there are whispered confessions in the middle of the night, when he wakes, body twitching, and she can feel his rapid pulse, beating through his chest, pressed against her back. With every word, with every calming second, until his breathing returns to normal, it gets easier. 

Easier to say,  _I’m glad you’re still with me._ Easier to say,  _you are important to me._ Easier to say,  _there’s nothing to forgive_ but also to say  _you don’t have to be a different man for me, a ‘better’ man._

_____

There’s an edginess to his need on the days he visits Belle at the at the library, a restless energy that consumes him, his need to set things right, to even the balance that he was a part of destroying. _Cursed or not_  he says of his hand,  _I attempted to outwit the Dark One and paid a price, a price which should have been mine alone._

She matches his need, their fingers grasping and pulling, gripping collars and belt loops until she feels the friction will burn their clothes away. And she traces her fingers along his hook to remind him that it’s not about limbs or metal, it’s about  _him_ and  _her._


	73. afternoon delight

His hand is down her pants, fingers sliding into her, pressing deeper and then curling to hit that spot, the one that makes her moan his name and catch a handful of his hair, pulling his head back. She’s on his lap, her lips falling to his neck as he shifts beneath her, his hips pressing closer to where hers ride his hand. The friction of the tight denim on her hips constrains her motion, enhancing everything, making every twist of his finger, every flick of his thumb at her clit, feel like  _everything_ in the world. 

(There’s nothing but him and her and the pressure building underneath her skin, his voice in her ear telling her to  _take it,_ to  _use him_ , to  _fuck his hand like a good girl._ )

She scrapes her teeth along the muscles and tendons of his neck, nipping red marks into his skin that match the ones she’ll have tomorrow as his hook tears a hole in her jeans where it’s been resting on her ass. The sound of tearing fabric lost as fingers continue their relentless fucking, siding in and out as she presses her forehead to his, he lips hovering over his, teasing him until she can’t wait any longer, until she has to close the distance between them.

(There’s nothing but him and her and the way he moans her name against her lips, his tongue flicking out to taste hers, and the cool metal against her newly exposed skin.)

Her fingers are still gripping his hair, tugging and pulling as he kisses her, open mouthed and tasting, his tongue and that maddening, slow slide against hers. Her heart races, it’s pulse spreading through her body as he her hips roll and undulate against his hand, against his erection, pressing through the leather of his pants. The scraping of the fabric between them is the only thing the hears above the panting of her breath as she comes. 

(There’s nothing but him and her and way he flips her body, sliding her jeans down her legs as he frees his erection, and the way that he rubs a finger across his mouth and he tastes her on his skin, with that devilish smile at his lips.)


	74. Chapter 74

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cs + lazy morning sexytimes

She wakes up to the warmth of his body along her back, the creaking springs of the bed at Granny’s filtering through the haze of sleep. There’s a dip in the mattress that falls between their bodies when they sleep, a dip that he rolls into every morning when the sun begins to stream through the curtains and his body seeks her warmth. His lips graze the skin at the place where her neck and shoulder meet and she feels the soft puff of air that leaves his mouth after he inhales deeply.

_I love your scent,_ he tells her, like he always does. He whispers it against her skin as his mouth travels from her neck to her jaw, his hand sliding around her body, sliding underneath the soft cotton shirt. His hand, tracing patterns on her skin as her hips shift and press back towards his. He’s hard against her, and his teeth are now nipping at her skin, pulling at her ear, as he hand continues it’s path to cup her breasts, first one, teasing and tracing, twisting at her nipple, then the next. 

She murmurs incoherent words as she rolls her body to face him, her hands gliding until they reach the hair at the nape of his neck, that’s growing a bit long. He groans as her nails scratch against his skin, in that place that she knows he loves the most. Their lips meet in a barely-there kiss, grazing against each other as they smile, and his hand grips her hip, and he rolls her to her back.

His tongue traces her skin as his lips move along exposed skin,hand lifting her shirt, peeling it off her body, lips finding her collarbone, and lower. Lower to the the hollow between her breasts, over to the right, the left, her nipples hard and aching. Wanting. His lips travel lower to the jut of her hipbone, the soft skin between. 

And lower still, thumb sliding beneath the drawstring of her pants and pushing the fabric down. His fingers finding her wet, finding her hips undulating, up to meet his touch. She gasps his name as his fingers slide into her, his lips following their path along her slick flesh. He teases her until she’s gripping his hair, his mouth tasting her, savoring her, bringing her to the edge and pulling her back. He doesn’t let her come until he’s inside her and her hand is gripping his firm ass, nails digging into his skin, his hips pumping faster and faster until she wants to whisper  _I love you_  against his lips, but instead she just cries his name.


	75. Chapter 75

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr prompt: "Can you write a fic where Emma and Killian haven't had... coffee... yet and Emma, being so sexually frustrated, asks why Killian hasn't put the moves on her yet? I am a-okay if you choose to include smut in it, btw."

Emma doesn’t notice it at first. She’s too caught up in pressing her lips to his, her fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt, his vest, his jacket - whatever surface she can find to grab, she does. She likes being able to feel something, to hold onto him in any possible way, since that day she almost lost him. She’s so distracted by his taste on her lips, the way he moans into her mouth at the end of the night, the way he presses her against the wall in the hallway outside his room. 

She’s so distracted by thinking,  _what if_ , that she doesn’t realize that he’s always the one to pull away first, letting her chase his lips with her body as he leans away and runs his hand, his hook up the sleeves of her jacket, as his fingers curl around her neck, her cheek, the warm press of his fingers on her skin sending sparks everywhere. 

.

When she does notice, it’s after their fourth date. It’s probably time for her to stop counting dates, but it’s something she’s never done before, as a teenager, giddy over her first love. With Neal there hadn’t been dates, just one day she was alone and the next she had a partner in crime. And there was something about Walsh that never made her feel this anticipation, this giddy enjoyment of the prospect of  _dating_. 

So, she likes to keep track, because it’s something of an accomplishment for her, it’s something that adds  _meaning_  to her life,  _he’s_ someone who adds meaning to her life. But of course, it’s also something that Henry teases her about in that teenage boy way of his, as he waggles his eyebrows and says, “Fourth date, huh?” 

And then he gives her a little smile that let’s her know that yeah, maybe it’s still hard for him but he’s getting more okay with it as time goes on, as life in Storybrooke begins to feel like it used to, during the days of the curse, but without that lingering sensation of threat. 

(And of course, people have their memories and their lives aren’t being controlled by anything except their bad decisions.)

(Or their good ones.)

.

He takes her to the same restaurant they went on their first date. Well, Killian would call it their third, after snow monsters and ice walls. But Emma likes to count those separately. She files them away under  _reasons to date Killian_ , next to looks good in leather and the way he says her name. 

Sitting across from him, she’s reminded of his playful  _leer_ , his jokes of pillaging and plundering. His constant self-admiration, as if the idea of her  _not_  finding him irresistible was too ludicrous to contemplate.

(And he’s not wrong, damn him. Even when she didn’t want to want him, she still wanted him.)

But this time, there’s no heated glance over wine glasses, no insolent slouch that allows his feet to press against hers underneath the table. Most importantly, there’s no subtle roll of his hips against hers when he kisses her goodnight, outside the loft. Instead, his hand lingers at her arm as he pulls away from her lips to press a gentle kiss on her cheek, her neck, and then steps away. 

This time when she closes the door behind her, she feels an awful, empty ache between her legs, a restlessness under her skin. And she’s thankful that David and Mary Margaret are out, so she can go upstairs and slide her fingers along her skin, so she can make herself come, his name a frustrated groan on her lips. 

___

Once she becomes aware of this  _hesitance_ , where it had never made itself known before, she’s a woman obsessed. She watches his every emotion as it flickers across his face. She’d known how he felt about his actions while under Gold’s control. They’d talked of it that first night, after she left Henry and Regina, as she made her way back to Granny’s and knocked on his door, unsure of her reception so late at his quarters. 

She’d held his hand as they sat across from each other on his bed, as he’d spoken, so quietly, about _everything._

(And there are moments now, that she wonders, if she had noticed something sooner, that day he’d shown up at the station with his hook back in it’s place, would he be so hesitant now, to take that next step with her?)

(And she wonders if she’s mucked it up forever, even though he assures her that she hasn’t, with his continued presences and their morning coffee dates.)

.

She knows that he’s atoning for his perceived wrongs, that it’s not about  _her_ , but sometimes she feels it’s her punishment. Not from him, but from the universe. Her punishment for being so stubborn, so blind to his regard, to the bright spots on his heart that exist as surely as the dark spots do. 

She knows all this, but still sometimes she’s so antsy, body thrumming, that she almost explodes, 

She’s so on edge that she almost comes, in his lap, as they sit on the sofa in the loft, movie playing on the television, but their attention long since abandoned to each other. Her legs drape over his and her hips press against his, rolling into him, fingers clawing at the fabric of the couch. His lips are fused to her neck, his teeth scraping across her skin. 

And she’s almost there, so she leans in closer and closer, the tips of her breasts peaking, nipping through her shirt, rubbing against the fabric of his. All she needs is his hook to shift right, to press just a little harder, there,  _yes there_ , at her hip…

…until they hear the tell-tale sound of baby Neal’s stroller being folded in the hallway and keys jangling loudly. 

___

She’d once said to him, “I’m tired of living in the past.”

And she’d meant it. She’d really,  _really_ , meant it. 

He’d replied, “I know how you feel.” 

But he’d left anyway, left her to a family dinner, backed away so slowly that, until he’d tried to get Henry to safety, she hadn’t even realized that he had as many walls as her. 

Maybe even more, with his over 300-hundred-year-old pirate past. 

So maybe it’s time for her to do a little chasing. Maybe it’s time for her to remind him that the past is just that and the only thing that matters is what you do now. What you do  _next._

___

Her plan starts with a box. A box labeled  _NY apartment_  in Henry’s messy scrawl, product of the one trip they took out of town, before the Snow Queen cursed them to remain, once again, inside the town line. They’d rushed to pack, she hadn’t wanted to be gone for long. Not since they had, only the day before, defeated a snow monster.

And, really, they’d fought it. Regina had  _defeated_  it.

Hence the boxes.

And there’d only been one left after a long afternoon of unpacking, once they’d returned to town. But this box was hers, her closet, more specifically. 

.

She eases pieces of her old wardrobe into the current rotation slowly. She doesn’t want to overwhelm him with changes, but there are new silky, sheer layers underneath some of her sweaters, and there are new shirts that don’t button up so high. There are scraps of lace that he can’t see, but she wears when they’re out, even if it’s just at The Rabbit Hole for a drink. 

She wears them when she encourages him, later at night, to let his hand wander up her shirt in the alley behind Granny’s, as she pushes him to the wall and she kisses him, slowly, nipping at his lower lip, sliding her hands down to tug at his belt loops. 

.

At first his response is a flicker of confusion in his eyes, and she doesn’t blame him. For all this time, he’s been flirting madly with her while she always stepped away first. The reversal is strange, but she likes how it makes her feel when he begins to catch on, when his eyes darken just enough as she bends over the table in the diner to steal a french fry from his plate. He teases her as she steals his food, but he slinks lower in his seat and their feet brush against each other. It sends a shiver through her body, the return of that simple, casual touch. 

She reminds him, too, every morning as he kisses her forehead so gently, while Belle unlocks the library. She reminds him that he can do this,  _they_  can do this, find a way to right the wrong. Then, as she walks away, she likes to toss her hair over her shoulder as she glances back and asks, “See you tonight?”

.

She feels it, a bolt of lust straight through her body, the moment that things  _finally_  click into place. She’s wearing her most daring option yet, her sheer, sheer blouse, and that gold, dangly necklace that falls between her breasts. 

At the beginning of the night, she’d twirled the gold chain between her fingers and glanced at him through fluttering lashes as she’d asked, “Like my treasure, captain?” 

He’d watched her all night, through dinner as the flickering candlelight at the table cast shadows across their bodies, illuminating patches of skin through her shirt, illuminating hints of the lace beneath. 

At the end of the night, she walks him up to his room and he answers her question from earlier. His fingers tug at the gold chain this time, bringer her close to him as he presses his lips to her skin, her neck, her ear, murmuring, “Aye, lass, your treasure is lovely.”

She shifts her face until her lips are just barely brushing against his and she asks, “Would you like to see more?”

And then her mind goes blank and he’s looking at her with an expression she’s never seen before, not even when he’d teased her about pillaging and plundering. It’s new, and it’s  _more_. 

And it’s hard and hot as his lips are on hers as he presses her against the door. His teeth nip at her lips, desperate and urgent, as she tries to grip his jacket, his shirt, anything to anchor herself in place. She’s a little tipsy, they both are, and as he reaches around her back for the doorknob, they stumble through the frame and they fall, inside the entry, a tangle of limbs. 

___

It’s only later, when they finally make it to the bed, limbs naked and entwined, his fingers twirling her hair as she strokes down his back, that she says the words she’s been so scared to say. And her heart races as they escape her lips, only to calm down when he says them back.


	76. Chapter 76

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she has a thing for his necklace. he really doesn't mind.

Emma’s giggling as she pulls at his necklace, dragging him away from their perch at the bar, where they’ve been whiling away the hours with a little drink and some flirtation. It’s been weeks since they’ve been able to do this, his fingers playing with the stray curls of hair around her face and her hands pressing on his inner thigh as she leans into him for the briefest of kisses. He swings his arm back to grab the arm of her red leather jacket, almost left abandoned on the barstool.

(Her laughter is light, a tinkling, musical sound and he treasures it, just as he treasures the way the chain pulls at his neck, hinting at her eagerness, that the same pull that he feels in her presence has found its way under her skin, as well.)

She pushes him against the brick wall outside the Rabbit Hole, in full presence of the deserted main street of Storybrooke. There’s no hesitation in her body as her lips find his, tugging and clinging, her tongue slipping into his mouth to taste his, even as her fingers remain locked around her charms. It never fails to amaze him, the way she’s thrown herself into this thing between them. For as long as it took her to say that final yes, her eyes bright and lips seeking his after he told his tale of his ships trade; it’s taken her half the same amount of time to announce to the town and world that she has chosen him.

(And gods, he knows that people cannot be owned, but certainly he is  _hers_ , as much as one person can  _belong_  with another.

And for all his free will, he will choose her every time.)

.

She’s wearing a skirt that swings as they walk, hand in hand. Her cheeks are flushed from the heat that always builds between them and her curls are tangled and mussed from his fingers gripping as surely, as tightly, as she held on to him. Her long legs are bare she walks, legs that have him mesmerized on most occasions, as she runs, chasing evil, saving them all again and again. She holds so much power in those legs, limbs that wrap around his hips when he fucks her, sometimes, her heels digging into his legs as she moans his name.

There’s a groove that’s dug into her thumb, into her index finger, a groove that he feels as his hand clasps hers. It’s caused by her iron grip on his necklace, the grip that she released only as she leaned to his ear, her lips brushing against his skin, as she whispered for him to come home with her. 

(He wonders at her fascination with the trinket, the way she likes to play with it while he gets ready in the morning, buttoning up his vests, twirling it around her fingers until he leans down to capture her lips.)

.

The apartment is empty and from the way that she glanced at him over her shoulder as she unlocked the door, he knows that she’s more than ready, her eyes gleaming and the smile playing at her lips. Her skirt swings as she walks into the entryway, and that’s what finally breaks him, the way her hips swing and the teasing smile that tells him that  _she knows._  She knows that he wants her, know that  _he knows_  how much she wants him. 

She gasps, a quick exhale of surprise, as his hand grips the flimsy fabric of her skirt and he uses that leverage to push her to the nearest surface. Her hands grip the kitchen counter as his lips seek hers, pulling at his lower lip with her teeth, her fingers sliding through the hair at the nape of his neck. She runs them along his scalp, the scratch of her nails making his groan as he kisses her, his hand sliding beneath her clothes, slipping under the lace of her panties to trace her smooth skin. 

(They’re both so tactile that sometimes he feels like there’s no place on each other’s body that they haven’t touched, no place there haven’t been purple bruises the size of fingertips on skin, so slight sharp pain to their coming together, pain that makes him yelp and groan and fuck into her all the harder as they come together.)

.

Tonight is no different as her hands slide down to the buckle of his belt and she pushes his pants down his hips. He pulls at her scrap of lace with his hook, knowing how much the cool slide of the metal against her skin makes her hips roll in anticipation. He leaves her skirt on and her legs lock around his hips, the heel of her boots digging into his pants, tearing at the already worn denim, but he doesn’t care. 

(He doesn’t care if she ruins his clothes because she’s under his skin and he never wants her to leave.)

His hook scrapes against the counter and she leans back on her elbows and watches him as he aligns their bodies, watches as he enters her with a swift thrust, strong enough to send a jolt through her body, strong enough that she gasps his name and throws her head back. His hand grips her hip as he moves, his torso chasing hers, body leaning lower and lower until they touch. She’s wearing too many clothes but he doesn’t want to change the pace, the way that her hips thrust up to meet his. 

He swears he can hear her murmur,  _it’s so good, always so good_ , and it spreads through his body, this intense need to always please her. He whispers her name in response and she must have heard something of the reverence he feels in his tone because she leans up and their eyes lock as they continue to move. 

His necklace dangles between them and her hand reaches up to grip the charms yet again. The pull of it is strong against his neck but he doesn’t care about the burn, not as his hand shifts to grip the counter and hers remain on his necklace, this symbol of who he  _was,_ who his is. And her eyes never leave his, not as her breath comes quicker and her pupils grow larger and her cheeks redden. Her eyes never leave his as her orgasm takes over and his soon follows. 

.

(He’s going to have to wear a high collar tomorrow, but when he readies himself in the morning, he finds that he cares not about the red burn around his neck, only at the way she smiles at him over coffee and the way that she undoes an extra button on his shirt, arranging the necklace to fall against his open chest, and placing a gentle kiss to the rapid pulse beating at his throat.)


End file.
